THE SMITH AND THE CRUCIBLE Monday morning Farber collected the holograms and went to see Anselm Smith. Rare oriental fish swam in the aquarium behind the director of the Brain Research Institute, their brilliant, multi-hued scales flickering, changing colors as they moved--like the rainbows Sophie had seen stoned; a love affair which Farber didn't mention even as his sister worked down the hall with LSD--perhaps Timothy Leary had been reincarnated as a woman....Eying the rainbow-fish, Farber asked, "Are they under the influence of AZOT?" "Yes." Anselm turned, tapped on the glass. The fish started, shock waves of color rippling across their bodies, gradually subsiding. "It is an interesting, a very interesting substance indeed." Farber said, "I have a new theory concerning AZOT's action." He handed a hologram to Smith, who lifted it to the light. Images sprang from its depths, became flames and waves alternately as he rotated it. "Memories are stored in the brain as holograms," Farber said. "Something I proved ten years ago, if I may cite my own research...all the parts--each of the millions of neurons--contains the whole; tear a hologram in half and you will have two holograms, both with less resolution: so also destroying part of a man's brain doesn't destroy a specific center--other parts of the brain take over its function: I was working with a brain-damaged man who should've been dead by every central-localization theory; but in spite of massive damage he was quite intelligent and..." Smith said, lighting up his pipe, "I know all this. Fundamental to modern brain theory. Go on." Farber continued, "All nature is a hierarchy of levels of organization: the particle, the chemical--genes, mind, culture: the holographic principle holds at every one of these levels, thus myths are holograms which store the memories of a culture; a myth is to the collective unconscious what memory is to the individual. Archetypes are holograms of the species mind." Smith sat silently through all this, puffing his pipe. Farber was trying to divine some of his thoughts: Was he going to accept or reject what was to come? "But the holographic theory can be used not only to describe the appearance of memories; archetypes and myths; but the microstructure of matter as well. The equations being used by new quantum theories don't treat quarks as particles or waves, but as interference phenomena--trans- formations of the same equations used in holography: each quark is a hologram, containing in latent form the structure of the entire universe." The pipe flared angrily, bowl a cherry red...Farber imagined the smoke entering his lungs, harsh, acid. "This same concept has also appeared in the metaphysics of certain philosophers such as Leibnitz, who believed that the world consists of monads, each of which is a microcosm of the whole; and Whitehead, who believed in an extensive continuum, which contains all possible relationships, both actual and potential. The only difference between one monad and another, whether it be a particle, a man, or a planet, is the relationship to the whole--but each of them still contains the whole.... "Holograms also can contain many images upon the same plate, like the one you are holding contains two images on the same plate. It is my theory that each monad contains a number of possible universes other than the one we inhabit, in the same way that a hologram can contain more than one image...." The fire sparked angrier and angrier, yet Farber felt as though he were part of some great machine that, once set on its course, couldn't be stopped--so he continued, no matter what the consequences. "I believe that as LSD acts upon neural and archetypal holograms, AZOT acts upon holographic mind-monads: AZOT allows us to glimpse an alternate universe...." Smith asked crossly, "What proof do you have of this?" "Here." Farber passed Smith the packet of holograms he had made over the weekend--a dark night, and lonely. "I've recorded the alternate world on these. The images are too robust to be hallucinations--there is too much similarity between the different views, as though it were a real structure Mikey was observing." Smith frowned. "Where did you get these?" "In Phoenix. Using the chimp and a portable Visualizer." "Damn!" Smith pounded the desk, and now the fire was in his eyes even as it died in his pipe. "You know that neither that animal nor the machine are supposed to leave this laboratory without my authorization!" "I know--sir. But I had to do it. For science's sake." "How do you know that your monad theory is true?" Smith exclaimed furiously. "That this fantasy city isn't simply an extremely realistic hallucination?" Farber handed him another set of holograms. "These were taken from a number of laboratory animals. The same image recurs in them all." Smith was silent for a long time. "This is baffling...." Farber said apprehensively, having already provoked his superior to an indignant rage, and fearing for the worst if he broached the idea, "There is only one way to test my theory: You must authorize the use of AZOT on a human subject." "No!" Smith hurled the holograms across the desk at Farber who tried to catch them as they spilled out onto the floor. "Your theory is too damn speculative! Not until you can provide me with a more precise model can I allow human experimentation--listen, Farber, psychedelic research was slowed down considerably one hundred years ago when the public panicked and it was declared illegal. We can't risk creating another panic with AZOT! There will be no human research until we know more about the effects on animals!!!" Farber gathered up the remainder of the holograms and left in silence. But he was not going to be defeated so easily....As soon as he was out of Smith's office Farber didn't hesitate. He knew exactly what to do. And better to do it before Smith decided he was a security risk: He stole an ampule of AZOT from the drug-supply locker, drove the stinging needle into his flesh. He left the laboratory, ran ran like fire, like flame, like a river running through the heart of the desert. He trembled, a leaf in the wind, vanished into a swirling maelstrom of antagonistic elements: water and fire, air and earth, merging with one another, then dissolving into chaos again. Somewhere in the chaos he met a twisting wraith of smoke, an old/young man; an androgynous, mercurial figure which yet retained its form despite the falling rain and the driving wind. He felt the presence of a vast and ancient intelligence which dwarfed his own. "Who are you?" Farber cried out, and his voice was swallowed by the elements. A voice which was not a voice, but deeper and more pene- trating, answered: "Hey, hey: I am Two Ways. I am your guide, and I told you I would teach you to see two worlds--and each of those worlds you will see in two ways....Ha, ha, ha, ha!" The voice vanished into laughter. The wraith broke apart, was absorbed into chaos. Farber saw worlds coming to be and dying there in the Void. He was one of them; he was One with them. He became pure awareness, experiencing existence as Void. The chaos subsided; for the briefest moment he felt immortal, dimly remembering having existed as a primordial amphibian crawling through the mud...then Farber once more perceived order and purpose amid the stillness, the silence: desert replaced the Void. The noon sun scorched the sands, but he was cool inside robes of coarse black fibers. He pulled the heavy cloak more tightly about him to shut away the hot wind stinging his hands, face. Farber began to walk in the direction of the crystal city. He trudged tirelessly onward until his foot touched an outcropping of black rock at the crest of one of the dunes. Suddenly the rock moved. A spray of sand covered him. He brushed himself off, looked in the direction of his fall: The rock was a living creature, an iguana carved from basalt. It burrowed into the sand, leaving a funnel-shaped crater where it had been. Even as the sand-dragon disappeared Farber was overtaken by a man on horseback dressed in the same dark robes he wore--a still-suit. Though Farber ran he was not able to elude his pursuer. The rider called out to him, "Hey, stop running: It is your old friend, Two Ways." Farber stopped dead in his tracks, electrified. Clammy beads of sweat condensed in spite of the unnaturally chilly suit. The other had the face of the wraith he had encountered. Two Ways laughed, said, "Didn't I tell you that I would teach you to see the world in two ways? You met me when you were traveling between worlds. Now I am with you again in this new world, and I will be with you when you leave!" "Where am I?" Farber asked, more than a little frightened of the supernatural apparition. "A few miles outside of Phoenix, capital of the Empire of Diana--a Goddess to these Gnostics. In this world the Gnostics suppressed Christianity--a natural development in an alchemical universe; alchemy is a form of Gnostic religion. Would you like a ride into Phoenix? I'm headed in that direction myself, you know." Farber mounted the horse behind the Indian shaman, dressed in ceremonial beads and rattles as well as more futuristic clothing--like this parallel universe, both futuristic and primitive. The medicine man cut an improbable figure as the horse moved on out across the dunes. And though Farber now placed his arms around Two Ways the magician somehow didn't seem solid--as though he wasn't really a part of this world. The burning light of Phoenix grew greater; became the metropolis he had seen in the holograms. What had inspired awe when witnessed through dim images plucked from a drugged animal's brain left him struck dumb when confronted in material form. Two Ways stopped the horse. "Quite a sight, isn't it? The capital of the Empire of the Air-Children, who built the city to the plan of their cosmology--seven levels: seven planets, seven metals--and populated it with creatures from their mythology: demons, women who are supposed to be incarnations of Wisdom, and so forth. "But the whole thing is a fraud--the Reformed Church hired the Atlanteans to rig up the gimmicks for them, and the masses, always credulous, believe in it: At least, they believe enough to keep the Theocracy in power. But even in Phoenix there are dissidents, rebels: the Troglodytes." The city gleamed, phosphorescent, lit from within, towering into the night sky. Farber could imagine cave-dwellers in rough-hewn armor plotting rebellion.... Two Ways spoke again, a light shining in his eyes: the reflection of Phoenix, perhaps, yet mixed with a colder glow from worlds beyond: "I cannot enter the city with you--fate has not decreed it. But you must enter, and once inside, you should not attempt to leave. Your fate is bound up with Phoenix; your destinies will be worked out together...." As Farber dismounted Two Ways' horse sped off into the distance.... # THE RAVEN WHO FLIES IN THE DARKNESS OF DAY AND THE BRIGHTNESS OF NIGHT A demon-thing was clawing at Farber: long, taloned nails, half bird, half man, a bestial thing out of some unimaginable hell. A raven that had been transmuted into man--but only part-way; it was ugly beyond belief. A silver jewel glittered on its forehead--it is the psionic amplifier which unites it with the group-mind of the evil Sorceress who ruled the city.... Who is that? Who speaks to me? Farber asked the mental voice, but the only reply was the whispering of the wind through the demon's wings. Farber had first spotted the bird-man among the aircraft which clustered about the hangars on the secondmost level of the pyramid city as he had approached on foot: The flyers hovered in spirals and circles; the bird-men circled among them...when suddenly one of the demon-things noticed him, broke from the corkscrewing formation, swooping toward him on night-wings of pure, black hatred. The dark evil of black magic. Farber fled, thinking of Two Ways' warning to him of demons which were actually recombinants--if recombinants existed in the biology of this mad, magical Universe. There are no chromosomes in the alchemical universe...blending is accomplished through mixing Darwin's panspermia, the other voice said--Farber realized that he was sharing his mind with another being. Who are you? Farber thought. Salamander. Then there was laughter; a laughter even colder than Two Ways'. An ice which burned. There was a vision of acid dawn, a glimmering of blazing white light through fractured crystal--then he was alone with his terror again. But he had learned that his mind now shared the body of the High Priest of a rebel drug-cult. He sought refuge in a cave at the base of Lion Hill; from where he was hiding he could see the creature peering into the darkness: Its body was like a man, but lighter, gaunter. At the end of long bony hands were taloned claws. Its wings folded along its back; its head was like a bird, a raven. Farber hurled a rock at the creature, knocking it backwards. It cried out loudly, flapping its wings, "Salamander! You rebel filth--I'll bring the magic of Diana herself against you!" He leaped on it, smashed its skull with a stone. There was blood on his hands, his fingers. As a scientist, he was not used to killing. This was the first time he had killed anything that hadn't been a laboratory animal...and some said that even they had rights. Abortion is murder, a voice whispered from Catholic grade-school; Salamander added, The world is Sophie's abortion. Farber paled at the blasphemy. Salamander added, once more with that icy laugh, I will kill you, parasite...I will absorb you! It's only a damn hallucination, Farber thought, yet still wondering at how great the reality of this drug was compared to the mere delusions and illusions of LSD--he breathed air that was crystalline in its freshness, not clouded like acid dreams. His thoughts flickered briefly to his sister; then more of the demons dropped from the skies so Farber fled, fearfully, into the darkness of the interior of the labyrinth of sand-dragon tunnels beneath the magical city. At first there was only darkness, then a soft glow in the distance. Drawing nearer, he saw that it came from a waxy sphere set into the wall: phlogiston, he thought, solidified fire...He was in a world where the Laws of Nature had been described by the Chemical Philosophers, Paracelsus, Fludd, van Helmont; a Newton who had been the last of the old magicians; a Darwin who had postulated evolution through transmutation; and an Einstein who had gone the way of the alchemists on Earth One. He came to a cavern where many tunnels met. Some were lit by the phlogiston spheres, set there by the Troglodyte nation--other paths were dark. He followed one of the lit paths. It's mouth opened onto a smooth vertical cliff, an immense well with a huge pipe at its center; light moved in spirals through the transparent pipe: magnetic fluid from the depths of the earth. Descartes and Boyle believed that magnetic corpuscles were corkscrew-shaped, capable of action at a distance.... He stepped out onto a metal catwalk a few feet beneath the cave mouth, leaned over, saw chunks of concrete and stone littering it. He looked into the depths, saw no bottom to the tunnel. Apprehensive of falling, he still climbed the ladder which led into Phoenix, no longer quite so ready to scoff at Two Ways or Ting. At the top Farber pushed open a trapdoor to emerge into a room full of machinery: the geothermal plants of Phoenix, where raw energy was transmuted into a usable, refined form by vast Philosopher's Stones; air was bubbled through the silver liquid magnetism, changing it to golden electrical fluid. Mechanical elves worked among the machines, opening and closing valves. They were gnomes, elementals formed when vital spirits encountered metals in the bowels of the Earth; they looked like robots. On seeing them Farber was tempted to return to the endless caves--but then took Two Ways' warning seriously: He could never leave the pyramid city. And live. Then he noticed that he was beside an elevator tube, a cylinder of the same glass crystal as the city. It's door slid open; one of the metal dwarves emerged carrying a bundle of wires. When its back was turned Simon ran into the tube. There was a button-pad, a destination-program; he punched a code at random and was propelled upward. He passed through cities inside the earth and cities above the earth to the apex of the megalopolis. Here there was no city, only endless rows of vitriol containers with dark shapes within. Flickers of lightning raced around their contours: Farber was in the Inferno (in the minds of the superstitious) where the demon bird-men were grown by growth-accelerators; quickening accomplished by immersion in vital fluid like pulses of lightning. Suddenly a ruby ray-blast flared beside Farber, narrowly missing him. He ducked for cover behind one of the incubators: Above him Sophie's twin rode upon a flying platform with short, stubby wings. He almost shouted out when he saw his twin sister, then Salamander told him that she was Wisdom, the enemy. The Goddess. A myth who was merely a product of magical technology. Sophie had him trapped. She landed on a vitriol floor with seven cities glimmering beneath her, advanced like a Western gunslinger at high noon. "Sister..." Farber pleaded, for an instant forgetting who--what--she really was. With incredible fury, she brought the butt of the ray-gun down on his head: All was blackness. # ENCLOSE ME IN YOUR GENTLE RAIN Farber awoke in a cell with three walls of metal and one of vitriol, a window onto the desert around Phoenix. Stars glimmered in the clear wall as the climate-control hummed. Suddenly the door scraped behind him as he lost himself in the beauty of an ethereal sunset. Diana's twin entered, wearing a green and red gown embroidered with deer; her flesh was silver, polished metal; her face reflected the light of the lamps in the hallway like a mirror, a pool of molten metal. A cyborg...Farber once more felt the icy wind that had haunted him since he had met Ting. Then the woman-machine spoke: "I am Diana," she said. "I am goddess of Phoenix...." Remembering what Two Ways had told him on the desert, Farber murmured softly, "You are only a woman." In spite of knowing that she was not Ben, he added, "A woman I love...." She slapped him. The blow from the cyborg's hand stung like the metal that it was. "Don't mock me. I rule this city--and I have imprisoned you because I want you to tell me what you know about the Fire-Children! Acid, Salamander; tell me about acid...who gives it to you, who you give it to...!" "You don't understand--I'm not who you think I am...." She hit him again, sharply, swiftly. He lost consciousness....He seemed to be dying--then suddenly was in a realm beyond Death and Life: He drifted alone, through oceans of endless night. Stars clustered together, grew into a single body of light. The light became a man, a God: Day. For eons Day was alone in the Void, until some obscure Being from some inconceivable higher realm reached into Day's domain to fashion a child: Night. The child grew, became a woman: Stars shown in her depths while galaxies formed in her womb. Day and Night gambled for the fate of the world; their dice were planets and all space their gaming board. Night took her turn and won. Farber watched for long, endless ages as Day was ritually sacrificed to Night, blood, the Rose of Mysterious Union, dripping from the altar of stone. ...and was himself the sacrifice, the heart smoking before a dark goddess who plunged her long knife into it--him--while muttering obscene incantations. Farber's dreams now were of sunlight and shadows. Even as he once more saw the rose blood of twilight Salamander spoke again: You sleep...and with every dream my possession grows stronger....I will kill you for entering my mind; I will kill you as a Knower, a Gnostic--a man for whom all things are permissible! Farber awoke, tossed and turned fretfully. He could not sleep. Dreams are poison to an agnostic. # End of file Press RIGHT ARROW (#6 key) of the numeric keypad to load the next file.