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  Semantic decipherment involves quite a bit more than just scrambling words around to find the meaning of a phrase. I mean, don't go in to your boss and tell him that the solution to the cipher is "the crows have three cocks." You would be closer to the truth of this particular cipher if you began to wonder who was disclaiming whom—or if the message really had something to do with the passage of three sunrises—perhaps an instruction to take some action at the third sunrise. But you have to know the context.

  I did not pick that example from thin air. I did solve an actual cipher a few years back that was a play on the New Testament story of Jesus before the betrayal at Gethsemane when he foretold that Peter would deny him "thrice" before the cock crowed. You try to consider the words as elements that play against each other and toward each other. In my little example, above, the fully deciphered message could be ordering a terrorist attack upon some preselected Christian target in the Mideast. But you do consider the context.

  Context is all-important, in fact. If the cock crows double cipher had been intercepted on its way to a Russian sub operating beneath the polar ice, the symbology could be very puzzling. I would have to pull the file on that Russian skipper and try to understand why he'd been doubled with that particular phrase instead of a hammer striking an anvil or something to do with the victory of the working class.

  So I knew that I was working out of my own depth with this message from another world—if that, indeed, is what it was. I had not yet decided what the hell it was or that it meant anything beyond warmed-over bromides served up purely for my bedazzlement. But I had to reach for something and that was all I had, at the moment.

  So I took "peril precedes peace" and read that as simply a setup, a prefacing statement, like "be careful."

  Then we had "sorrow accompanies joy." That could simply mean that you pay for what you get: be prepared to pay.

  Next was "strangers become lovers" and "lovers become strangers." Nothing is forever, all is in flux, be prepared to drop old alliances and forge new ones.

  How about "the virgin lusts while the satyr rests?" There's a goodie. I passed, for the moment.

  "Authority corrupts compassion" means exactly what it says. Someone—need we ask who?— is in for a hard time with the people in charge of justice.

  "Dispersion feeds reversion." That's almost a homily. It's like the major fear of ethnic groups who want to preserve their culture. Or, perhaps more in context, you take a band of savages and make Christians of them. Long as you keep them all together, they'll probably remain good Christians. It's like peer support. Let them start drifting away, though—dispersing—and they will go back to their old habits of eating the missionaries.

  "Community bests disunity" could mean about the same thing except for the choice of "bests" instead of "beats." We get here a feeling of disunity being overthrown by an organized attempt to bring everybody together. Read these two together as a single statement for the best understanding.

  The next two are definitely a pair; they even rhyme. "Flesh decays when the spirit weeps; Life delays what the devil reaps." This reminded me of a line from the eighteenth-century poet, Christopher Smart: "For he counteracts the Devil, who is Death, by brisking about the life." But I am reserving this one, too, because something biblical is at the tip of my tongue and won't get on.

  The rest of it seemed fairly obvious, but I still decided I was wasting my time on this stuff. I simply did not have the deep context, nor even an understanding of what the tutorials in general were supposed to do. Janulski had hinted that they were some sort of heavenly revelation fraught with significance. I withheld judgment on that idea, too. I would have loved to see an official translation. But that was not in the cards, either, because the whole place was locked up tight and a notice on the bulletin board by the gazebo announced the cancellation of all scheduled activities until further notice.

  So I put the notes away and broke into the joint.

  And I very quickly wished that I had not done that.

  The general offices were in quiet bedlam. If that sounds like a contradiction of terms then you just do not understand how loud quiet can get in the spirit world.

  A séance or whatever was in progress in the reception area. I guess they were doing it there because it was the only room large enough to contain it. Twelve people were scattered about on leather couches and chairs, each a channel, and microphones had been carefully placed to record each precious whisper.

  Except that you really cannot call that sound whispering. Sibilant, yes, but harshly so, and all mixed together from the twelve mouths all moving at once yet integrated somehow so that no two spoke at precisely the same moment. But the flow—the flow—like water over a dam was unbroken, an endless phonetic sigh emanating from twelve separate sources to produce a single flow. But it did not sound like a flow. It sounded like bedlam, and it was bedlam.

  Other people were up and moving hurriedly about through all that, to and fro between the other offices and along the corridor to an inner courtyard, like the seemingly confused frenzy of ants at a picnic, moving files and records outside and dumping them in a common pile. Must have been twenty people in all, counting the séance mediums, and Bruce Janulski was one of those on the move.

  He walked past me twice without acknowledging my presence—without even seeing me, I believe. I thought about putting an arm on him his second time through but decided against it. He was like a man in trance, moving with a single purpose.

  None of them noticed me, except to step around me when I got in the way. I saw Ted, the medium, except he was not mediuming at the moment—he was one of the ants—and I recognized one of the office ladies, but I was really all alone with myself in that nuthouse.

  So I wandered on through to the courtyard and checked out the growing pile of papas. Hell, it looked like financial records, computer printouts of membership rolls or something, ream after ream of writings—probably tutorials—stacks of corres-pondence, inventories—anything and everything relating to the activities of this organization.

  These people were getting ready for a bonfire!

  I swiped a few pages from a stack of tutorials and went on through to the other side of the complex, into the auditorium which officially served as the church facility.

  There was nobody in there but I was following a hunch, went on to the room behind the stage.

  Annie was "there," yeah. Naked, standing in the same shaft of light, arms upraised in that same pose.

  But she was not the only one.

  The other three spotights were shining, too, and their beams were occupied by three more dazzlingly naked females.

  One of those was the busty Rachel who had channeled for me earlier. The big tits were not her only attributes, let me tell you.

  I did not recognize the other two—but of course I had never seen them in that particular light before, so maybe...

  They were all sizzling.

  I just stood there frozen for maybe thirty seconds.

  And then Annie very slowly abandoned her pose and turned to look at me. Our eyes joined and I swear something in me fused to something in her.

  She gave me a beatific smile and said to me, "I knew you'd come."

  I think I went a little crazy there, then, because the next really coherent memory I have of that experience finds me standing naked, also; the beams have merged into a single shaft of light and we all share it; my arms are raised in that same pose with all the girls and I am at the center; their bodies are gripping mine like a hot dog bun surrounding a wiener; and that, pal, was the very end of coherence.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Relative Objectivity

  I was falling through a shaft of light that seemed endless. I did some skydiving once and that is the closest experience I can relate it to—the freefall stage—but this was freefall with no restricting medium, like falling through a vacuum, absolute zero gravity; and it was pleasant, very pleasant. Annie and I were embracing. I adored her and she adored me
; the surge of complementing emotions was almost overpowering, like I wanted to laugh and cry all at once. Yet it was not like hysteria; it was sweet and good. I was peakingly aware but the peak never decayed; it just hung there, sharp and wonderful. I could feel her heart beating against my chest and I could feel her hair on my face and taste it and smell it; I was stunningly aware of her flesh on my flesh, the soft little belly warm against mine, legs restlessly intertwined, hands caressing hands and faces and shoulders. But it was her eyes that were absolutely tearing me up, eyes deeper than all the reaches of space and pouring love from all those depths; and I knew for the first time what love can really be; love is where it's at and what it is and the reason for all the reasons.

  "We shall meet again; we shall fall in love."

  At such a moment, I thought of that—and I understood it and accepted it. We had met again and we were falling, in love.

  I understood something about love, too, in that moment. It is an ever-seeking force, and it seeks itself. At this moment it had found itself and I was exultantly participating in that discovery.

  But there was a problem. A problem, of sorts. I was fully extended in all my dimensions, and sexuality is one of those; my sexual extension was at infinite limit; immersed in all that sweet and tender and understanding love, I was also at the same moment an infinitely swollen penis shaking with the frenzied need for union, and that was the problem. Recognition of the problem added another dimension to my understanding of love; love without sex is a postponement of love's fulfilling power, a diversion or scattering of the force. It added also to my understanding of sex without love; sex without love is the consolation sought by the scattered pieces.

  I said to Annie, "There is too much sex without love because there is too much love without sex."

  And Annie replied to me, almost whimpering with sweet stress, "Yes, but please be patient with me. I am trying."

  She was trying, yes, but without notable success. My sexual extension was about to burst.

  We kept falling through nothingness and Annie kept trying. Suddenly she stiffened against me, inhaled sharply; said, "Ohhh. Yes. Ohhhhh."

  And I really understood, then, what love truly is.

  I was in a very different place. Different from what, I don't know; just different; no, very different. There was no up or down, no side to side, no depth extension. Yet there was no lack of any of that, either.

  I puzzled about that for a moment and then I realized that what was lacking was relativity. There was no relativity.

  There was an up but it was the same as down; a side but the same as the other side; a depth but all was depth.

  I thought of Lewis Carroll, then, and wondered where that guy had gone to get Alice's adventures in Wonderland. A place like this? Did a place like this exist in 1865? Or did 1865 forever exist in a place like this?

  Mr. Lincoln? Are you there?

  He was not, but another was.

  Dear old Dad was there. I was not really sure that I was; but he was. He was the whole place, I think. I mean, he was everywhere there.

  I asked him, "What is this place?"

  He asked me, "What would you like it to be?'

  I said, "Is it as easy as that?"

  He said, "It's as easy as you want to make it."

  I asked, "Is that good?'

  He replied, "Is it bad?"

  I told him, “Hell I don't know. Isn't it the same thing?”

  He chuckled and told me, "You're the boss. It's what you make it."

  I asked, "What is?"

  He replied, "Everything is."

  I snapped my fingers, I think, or I snapped something and said, "Like this?"

  He smiled and said, "Sure."

  I said, "Are you really my dad?"

  He said, "Yes. But also your son."

  I said, "Wait right there. You have to be one or the other."

  He said, "I am."

  I said, “You are? Okay. Which one?”

  He said, "Of course."

  I thought, shit, I'm in heaven with a comedian. But he heard that thought and he laughed and told me, "If that's the way you want it, that's fine with me."

  I said, “My will be done?”

  He said, "Always."

  I had to think about that. Finally I told him, "I think I need some relativity."

  He said, "Okay."

  "Objectivity."

  "Okay."

  "Where the hell am I?"

  "You are at home."

  “At home?”

  "Relatively, yes."

  “How about objectively?”

  "Objectively you are between there and there. Or here and here. However you prefer it."

  I said, "I just want to know what the hell is going down."

  He replied, "That is in review."

  “What do you mean by in review?”

  "Relatively or objectively?"

  "Both."

  He chuckled; told me, "The antecedent follows the precedent."

  I said, "Don't give me fucking tutorials."

  So he said, "That which may be usually follows that which has been."

  I wanted to argue about that. I said, "That sounds like bullshit. Tell it to Darwin. If that which was governs that which is or may be, then where is change?"

  He showed me a patient and tolerant smile. "You forget fruition."

  "The cosmic egg," I decided.

  He gave me a delighted smile. "Exactly."

  "So what is in review?"

  "A route."

  "A route? A route is in review?"

  "Yes."

  "Route to where?"

  "Route to there," he said enigmatically.

  "Where is there?"

  He said, "Exactly. We might have to intervene."

  "Intervene?"

  He replied, "Yes. Scrub the route, you know."

  "Abort it? Abort the mission?"

  He said, "You could put it that way, yes."

  My head was beginning to hurt. Or something was. I told him, "This is all very confusing."

  He told me, "If you demand relativity and objectivity, how could it be otherwise?"

  I told him; getting angry, now, "You are telling me that relativity and objectivity are the source of confusion."

  He replied, "And the mother of invention."

  I said, "You mean necessity."

  He said, "There is no necessity except in confusion."

  "That's pure baloney!" I argued.

  "Relatively and objectively," he replied, "you're something of an arrogant bastard, aren't you."

  I growled, "Thanks, Dad. Maybe I come by it naturally."

  He chuckled, said, "Yes, your mother always had that problem."

  "Comedians," I complained. "Heaven is filled with comedians."

  "How else could we bear you?" he replied to that.

  I laughed and he laughed.

  I said, 'bye and he said 'bye.

  And then I awakened in Rachel's arms.

  And Rachel was dead.

  The other girls were dead, too. Annie was not there, of course; had not been there, not really, not all of Annie.

  I could find no marks on the bodies, no visible evidence of the cause of death.

  There was evidence of a different kind on me, though, drying little puddles of semen streaked across both thighs. I staggered into the little bathroom and washed that off, then quickly got into my clothes. There was a smell in the air, in there, a disturbing smell, and I think I knew what it was even before I got outside.

  I was stunned and confused and sad and exalted all at once and I barely knew my own name but I knew smoke when I smelled it and I knew what it meant. Reality was clashing in on me and I was remembering the bonfire fuel in the courtyard.

  Two of the surrounding roofs were blazing when I got there, and the entire courtyard was intensely hot. Ted was lying curled on his side near the door to the office corridor, another guy was a few yards away; both were dead but they were not burned and really l
ooked quite relaxed in their death, the same as the girls back there, as though it had come to them easily.

  I found a garden hose and turned it on but the pressure was not all that great; it was like pissing into the wind. I heard distant sirens, though, and knew they were coming my way, so I threw the hose down and ran into the general offices.

  It was hot in there but not blazing yet. But, God, there was death; bodies strewn everywhere; I hoped it was a nightmare but knew it was not.

  Those folks had all died easy, some just reclining back onto the couches; others toppled from their chairs; a couple of men holding hands and sprawled across the corridor.

  I could not find Janulski; he was not among those dead.

  I found the recording equipment in a small vaultlike room behind his office. It had all been turned off and the tapes removed. Specially designed tape storage cabinets lining the walls stood bare with doors agape.

  I ran through the offices like a crazy man, trying to find something alive, but finally had to give it up and get the hell out of there. The walls had become so hot they could spontaneously ignite at any moment.

  The firemen were there and going through their preliminary drill. I grabbed one with captain's bars and told him where the bodies were. He jerked his head in an understanding nod and sent his troops into the battle.

  I had just emerged from that war zone so knew where they were headed, and I had to respect those guys...but I could not help them and I was just in the way. So I went on to the parking lot and found the Maserati and moved it safely to the rear then tried the mobile phone and connected with Paul Stewart.

  I told him what had happened—well, most of it—but that took awhile because I had to repeat myself a lot; guess I was not speaking too clearly. My chest hurt and my head hurt and I was all but overwhelmed by an ever-deepening sadness.