The Lamb Of Sandalwood

THE LAMB OF SANDALWOOD

THE SANDALWOOD TREE IS A HIGHLY ADAPTABLE SEMI-ROOT PARASITE THAT THRIVES FOR 25-30 YEARS BY FEEDING ON THE ROOTS OF OTHER HOST PLANTS AND TREES.

1.Sleepless in LAX.

1:00 AM, Saturday, 1998-02-14, CHICAGO BODY CLOCK

11:00 PM, Friday, 1998-02-13, LOS ANGELES

6:00 PM, Saturday, 1998-02-14, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

6:00 PM, Saturday, 1998-02-14, NOUM; NEW CALEDONIA

Sam needed sleep after a grueling onboarding process and a five-hour flight from O'Hare to LAX. Facing another sixteen-hour flight to Sydney in six hours, Sam found a darkened closed gate with an empty row of padded beam seats. At first, Sam splayed himself across the ridges. But when distractions glared through each passing minute of Sam's futile efforts to recharge, he surrendered to lay on the carpeted floor below and endure the smell of old socks and more. As he pocketed his glasses and adjusted his travel pillow and blanket to get comfortable, the words of his doctor yesterday rang in his ears.

"Sam, I'm sorry to say, but you are so overweight - one hundred pounds over - that it is dangerous. We need to bring that weight down."

"Okay, but I still need a job," he told his female doctor, pointing out that his senior information technology consultant job demanded constant travel, managing client expectations, and long hours in front of a computer terminal.

Sam did not say that some of his managers recently complained that he was oversensitive and argumentative and that Sam was on thin ice at Creed Data Union. In his twenties, Sam enjoyed his profession. But now, at thirty-two, Sam was far less tolerant of feeling bullied by the demands of his job, and it showed.

"Of course. But I was hoping you could read this material and see a nutritionist. Changes in diet and exercise take time, so we need to get started immediately," she countered. Sam left the appointment feeling like she was telling a drowning man to drink water. Still, he took a large gulp of the bottled water he purchased from the concourse shop. He was leaving the country. Any hope of weight loss plans would have to wait.

Sam remembered his mother being sick and lying on the living room couch the way he was now, unusual for their typically busy mother.

"Go play in the other room; leave me alone!" she had told her children.

Sam knew something had scared her, which scared all her children because their mother was not easily frightened. They only knew she had answers, and their father was not home. So the children sent twelve-year-old Sam, the oldest and the family scapegoat his mother blamed for making her a mother, on a mission to get answers. Sam accepted the mission because he was used to shouldering the blame for things going wrong, which was highly likely, and because his mother's golden child, his youngest sister, was still too young to understand the answers.

"Are you okay?" Sam whispered, taking a single, cautious step into the living room.

"Go away, I said! I told you already! Why do you always have to be the problem!"

"I just," he started, wanting to retreat, but the mission remained.

"Stop talking back! Go away!" his mother tried to shout but coughed and could barely rise from the couch. "See how you always just make things worse?"

Sam retreated, expecting his father to belt his bare bottom multiple times later that night because that was how these things went.

But this time was not typical. Sam's mother called his father at work. Then she told Sam he was to wait by the front door because his father was on his way home to deal with Sam. Fueled by fear, injustice, and pre-teen hormones, Sam prepared for a showdown with his father at the front door despite his smaller size and lack of training.

His father seemed to fly through the front door. This time, his father let his mother and younger sister watch.

"You," his father said, delivering the first punch to Sam's flailing.

"Can never," Sam felt his father deliver a series of punches that fell between his attempt to fight back until he fell to the floor.

"Win this! So don't," Sam felt the first kick to his rib but did not see the windup.

"Even," Another kick came, this time to the stomach.

"Try!"

And that was it. Sam's father delivered his verdict and the sentence until Sam was in a ball on the floor, weeping and humiliated before witnesses. From then on, the beltings stopped, and nobody ever mentioned the story, at least that Sam knew.

Sam thought he'd buried the story in his subconscious. But with the news Amy was pregnant, he not only felt unworthy of fatherhood, he secretly dreaded that his family might use their buried secrets to humiliate his unborn child.

Sam felt that familiar constricting feeling swirling around his legs. For as long as he could remember, this feeling seemed to happen right before a vision, as if it were some kind of vision alert.

He'd been having visions like this since childhood. This one, a repeat vision he called "Old-Red-Eyes," was of an enormous, rotund being with no legs, two piercing red eyes, and twenty-two other eyes that seemed to be directing a giant python to constrain Sam. Nothing usually happened; there was a lot of watching, plotting, spewing, and attempts to constrict.

But this time, the giant python plucked what appeared to be Moura, the young intern he had discovered dead on the office floor, from a pod in a large sandalwood root.

Old-Red-Eyes unlatched its large mouth that seemed to be hinged to its head to reveal many layers of sharp teeth. The giant python threw Moura into the mouth of Old-Red-Eyes. Sam watched as Old-Red-Eyes then chomped, thumped, and masticated Moura until Moura was swallowed and gone. Old-Red-Eyes then latched the mouth shut. It seemed to smile at Sam if a momentary upward curvature around the edges of a device that had consumed Moura could be called a smile.

"That one chose dark matter," it spewed in a red gaseous cloud, looking directly at Sam as if threatening him through the vision.

Sam rolled to one side and released a tormented sigh. From early childhood, he had learned that to survive in his psychic jungle, he needed to mask his "damned visions" from a world he distrusted by burying his visions alongside his childhood traumas and pretending neither happened.

Sam was not sleeping. To make matters worse, the CEO of CDU, Dave Lanquester, had personally assigned Sam to this stressful software installation project halfway around the world at L'Caledonie Nationale Bank in New Caledonia. Since his future at CDU was uncertain and Sam knew that Dave was throwing him a lifeline, Sam was sure this could be his last project if he messed up. He tried to clear his mind and sleep.

Then he remembered discovering Moura's naked and dead body, her neck broken and twisted back on itself, on the office floor yesterday morning. Her cold, dead eyes stared at him.

Sam told the police three times that he was sleeping on Amy's stupid, undersized living room couch last night after another fight with Amy!

Now only half awake, Sam shifted his arm because it fell asleep. After the blood returned, he tried to sleep fully.

Sam felt that familiar constricting feeling swirling around his legs again. It was another repeat vision. He stood before a white marble staircase leading up to a towering waterfall. Someone named Moura, not the Moura at the office, stood off to his right, dressed in translucent white.

"These pillars honor the Atlanteans, our greatest chiefs," she said in a melodic, peaceful soprano voice, pointing to twelve awing pillars of white marble surrounding her. A white mist covered the ground around him up to his knees. The sky was almost pure white, reflecting off blue and green ocean water in the distance.

"Wherever they went, they offered their First Principles, seeds of hope, faith, light, forgiveness, and love whenever they faced hatred, doubt, despair, darkness, or sadness." The mist disappeared, revealing a tropical forest surrounding the stairway and waterfall.

"You must free all souls held captive by the dark, Sam," Moura said, her tone gentle but firm.

"It is too soon -- I am not ready -- "Sam would shout.

Sam did not know precisely why he felt overmatched, why he shouted, or who was listening. He only knew this was what he always said in "The Waterfall" vision.

The airport air-conditioning kicked in. Sam adjusted his pillow and blanket for warmth but was otherwise unruffled. Minor discomforts from air drafts were par for the course. If he became too weak to sustain the masks, he reminded himself, he risked exposing the crippling emotional oscillations from his early childhood traumas and jeopardizing his consulting job.

"You are the most emotionally repressed person I know!" The harsh sound of Amy screaming at him still rang in his ears. And then there was her note on the kitchen counter saying she "needed a break and would stay with her mother in New Caledonia for a while." Familiarity, it seemed, had bred contempt.

He tossed to lay on his side, angrily punching the travel pillow in a failed attempt to release a tsunami of repressed emotions.

2.Sleepless in the Air.

8:00 AM, Saturday, 1998-02-14, CHICAGO BODY CLOCK

6:00 AM, Saturday, 1998-02-14, LOS ANGELES

1:00 AM, Sunday, 1998-02-15, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

1:00 AM, Sunday, 1998-02-15, NOUM; NEW CALEDONIA

Once he found his seat, Sam looked forward to not interacting with others during the fifteen-hour flight from LAX to Sydney. Sometimes, he needed to escape to a safe place deep inside his mind to calm his inner oscillations.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing as the plane took flight, allowing his mind to follow as he inhaled and exhaled. Yesterday is history, he thought. Sam closed his eyes and imagined a white sandy beach where the sounds of the ocean and the warm air soothed his nerves. Soon, he'd pushed all thoughts out of his mind, moving into another world he trusted was his safe place.

"I told you not to use my toothbrush," Amy shouted. Memories of their fight two days ago invaded his safe place. She had emerged from the bathroom, naked, waving her toothbrush as Sam came through the door from work. The smell of insecticide and dirt from Amy's indoor garden reminded Sam that while he spent the day resisting muddy complexity, Amy was at home passionately creating it.

"I did not use it!" he shouted back.

Arguing while naked was Amy's power move, intended to taunt Sam while verbally abusing him. Early in their marriage, back when he still reveled in the excitement around her pursuit of a now-failed career as a dancer, this was foreplay.

"Liar! It smells like you, and your toothbrush is dry."

"Well, maybe I made a mistake. Sorry." Sam was tired and desperately wanted to avoid another fight with Amy.

"I hate your parents!" Amy started running around their white-walled, one-bedroom apartment, picking up objects and throwing them, and yelling horrible things about how each object in the apartment somehow related to why she hated his mother.

Amy had good reasons to dislike his mother. His mother didn't want the marriage, but Sam did not listen. The entire Hale family wanted Sam to leave Amy before they married. They thought she was erratic, volatile, and wrong for Sam.

Their fighting escalated to wrestling on the bed. Everything wrong with their ten-year marriage spiraled into explosive collisions. They became detached, angry, gaseous remnants of themselves guided by unseen forces. There was nothing sexual about it. Sam could not hurt Amy physically - that was just not in him - so the fight ended when he took a blanket and pillow and headed for the familiarity of the couch that smelled of him.

Sam had overheard Amy calling her mother in New Caledonia from the other room a few hours later.

"Mom?" Amy's voice quivered as she cried.

Sam knew that Grace Lanquester-Deforest, David's sister, ever the gifted diplomat, would know from Amy's voice and the late hour in Chicago that Amy was in danger of having a petit-mal seizure and that Grace needed to handle yet another "Amy drama."

"Yes, I'm alone. Sam is sleeping on the couch in the other room," she whispered.

"We just had a huge fight."

"No, he didn't hurt me, not physically, anyway. I just screamed a lot and threw things at him."

Amy paused.

"Because the doctor we saw last Friday scared him."

Amy paused.

"I thought he was a quack. But he's a neurologist who wrote a book about how people get programmed for divorce. He said I needed to be in a low-stress home situation, that our marriage was not that, and that our marriage was likely to end in divorce because my parent's marriage ended in divorce."

Amy paused again.

"Sam was pretty shaken up. We have not stopped talking and arguing about what the doctor said since then, and it got horrible tonight. Mom, I don't see how our marriage will get past this."

Amy paused this time to listen for a long time.

Grace had managed Amy's emotions, sleep, diet, and exercise routines for years, all to prevent the seizures. But Grace struggled most to prevent Amy's emotional flare-ups because they often preceded a Petit-mal seizure. Grace made Sam promise to do the same before allowing Amy to marry and travel halfway around the world to pursue her career as a dancer.

"For now, yes," Amy whispered. "Mom, there's something else. I'm pregnant. I just took the test - twice. About six weeks, I think."

"Because I don't want Sam to find out while I'm home alone with him!" Amy replied with a loud, intense whisper into the phone.

Amy paused for only a moment.

"No, we were being super careful! You can't blame Dad for my choices!" she whispered as if throwing an emotional lightning bolt.

"Can I come home, please? We both need time to cool off. I don't know where else to go. Deb moved to Florida. And my brother -- no!"

Sam knew that Grace knew that Amy was about to erupt.

"Thank you! Sam gets up early to go to work. He might check on me, but I'll be asleep. After he leaves for work, I can pack and be ready to leave. Love you too, Mom."

3.Barbara Withers.

9:00 AM, Saturday, 1998-02-14, CHICAGO BODY CLOCK

2:00 AM, Sunday, 1998-02-15, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

2:00 AM, Sunday, 1998-02-15, NOUM; NEW CALEDONIA

Sam raised his aisle seat upright and stood up from his fruitless attempt to sleep, navigating to and from the plane's lavatory in a sluggish, half-asleep state. He was hungry again and wanted to smoke. When Sam returned to his seat, the woman in the seat next to him was awake.

"They came around for drink orders. I hope you don't mind. You looked like you could use a drink. Figured you for a Scotch. Was I right?"

He hadn't paid much attention to his seatmate for the long flight to Sydney since she'd been wearing a sleep mask from the time they boarded. He saw now that she was a middle-aged, voluptuous woman with red, curly hair and brunette streaks. She wore oversized, red-rimmed glasses and a reddish-yellow, patterned infinity scarf covering most of her face.

"That'll work, sure. Thanks! Sam Hale," he said, already working on an escape plan to go back to sleep, as he extended his hand.

"Barbara Withers," she shook his hand.

"You a regular on this flight?" Sam asked.

"I get around, but I love French Polynesia and Fiji - all the rural islands and atolls are great places for a retired lady on an extended vacation. And you?"

"First time. Business. I live in Chicago," he said, still looking for a path to sleep.

"You know what I love most about traveling? The stories. I meet all kinds of people, and I'm a sucker for a good story," she smiled. The stewardess arrived with their drinks.

"Cheers!" Sam raised his glass, and Barbara tapped his glass to hers.

"So what's your story, Sam Hale?"

"Not much to tell. Consulting. I travel to do software installs onsite."

"Oh, come on, Sam, humor the lady tourist. I don't care about all that. You married?"

"Well, we're probably getting a divorce," Sam said, taking another swig before crossing his arms.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Sam. So where is she now?"

"You ask a lot of questions, Barbara!" Sam took another swig, then recrossed his arms and closed his eyes. Only yesterday, the doctor told him that the good news was that there was hope. He was only thirty-two, so he still had time to exercise, change his diet, and quit smoking. Then, that email arrived from the lab, showing Sam had high cholesterol and was at high risk of chronic heart disease.

"You're right. None of my business. Sorry. Some people say I can be too nosy," Barbara smiled, taking a swig of her drink. "I get bored on these long flights."

"Me too. I try to sleep," Sam said, removing his glasses. Sam hoped this would end her pursuit. In addition to masking his visions and traumas, he needed sleep to mask his new oscillations between hope and fear for his life.

"It's just... you seem like somebody with a lot on his mind."

"Not really. Just need some sleep," Sam said, downing the remainder of his drink, lowering his sleep mask, and donning the complimentary earplugs.

"I admire that! I can't fall asleep like that when I have all these thoughts running around," Barbara continued. Sam was starting to get annoyed. He could still hear her despite the earplugs.

"I just find talking to a stranger helps me relax. You know, get it out of my system so I can sleep. But some people don't need that. I don't know how you do it. But if that works for you, great!" Barbara gulped the remainder of her drink and hailed the stewardess.

"Can we get another round?" she asked, putting her empty glass into Sam's and passing both to the stewardess.

"And for you, sir?" Sam pulled up his sleep mask to see the stewardess looking at him for an answer.

"Can you bring two more and an empty glass, no ice?" Sam asked. The news that Amy was pregnant could not have come at a worse time in their marriage. Sam blamed himself for being so stupid. Maybe he could knock himself out, he thought.

"That's a lot of drinking for someone with the usual stuff on his mind. I'm just saying. Your choice, of course," Barbara said, pretending to read the safety card from the seat pocket in front of her. Sam prepared to escape to the bathroom, but the drinks arrived. Foiled again, he thought.

"I can be an excellent listener," Barbara said as she poured her drink.

Sam let out a harsh, exasperated exhale. He had run out of energy to mask everything going on inside him. "You're not going to stop, are you?" Sam took a drink from the bottle.

"Just bored. Sorry," Barbara did not seem apologetic, more like someone celebrating a win.

"Okay, how about we make a deal? One story, no names, nothing traceable," Sam suggested.

"Deal. And I think this will be good for you, Sam! You'll see. Much better than drinking yourself into a stupor." Barbara put away the safety card.

"You have my undivided attention, Sam Hale. Dish!"

"Her mother lives in New Caledonia, and she flew there yesterday."

"Okay, now that's interesting! And weird for you, huh?"

"Yeah, it is! It just happened - eerie coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidence. So, what do you think happened to your marriage?" Barbara's tone was curious and confident but not pushing now. She seemed genuinely curious and every bit the bored lady tourist she claimed to be.

"I don't know when it broke. It's all pretty fresh, you know?"

"Sure, you're just trying to cope right now. Does anyone else know?" Barbara asked.

"Other than her mother, I don't know who else knows. You're the first person I've told."

"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Sam nodded as he stared at his drink.

"The divorce isn't the worst story that happened in the last few days, actually," Sam said, draining the first bottle. The warmth of the Scotch was loosening him up.

"So, you want to hear a true story," Sam started. "A few days ago, I found our young intern from New Caledonia dead when I got to work. She was naked and lying on the floor with her ankles and wrists bound to the desk legs behind the receptionist's desk."

"Oh, I knew you had a story! Have you ever seen a dead body?" Barbara was egging him on, seeming uninterested in his feelings about happening upon a murdered corpse. Still, Sam didn't see any reason to withhold.

"Never. I still see her eyes, so frightened and dead, staring at me. Someone had pulled her hair from behind until her neck snapped, so her head was dislocated and hanging from her spine."

"Oh my God! How awful!"

"I'm sorry, maybe this is too much information."

"You'd be surprised by the stories I hear, Sam. Your story is not the worst, trust me. When I was working, I was an anthropologist. Bones sometimes tell stories about horrible deaths," Barbara offered.

"Another eerie coincidence. What are the odds I would be sitting beside an expert in horrible death scenes," Sam took another swig.

"It is! I did not expect you to tell me such a story. Now that you've come this far, don't leave me hanging - it's a mystery! Who is this girl, who did this, and why? You have theories?"

"Our CEO said she was an exceptional exchange student from the University of New Caledonia. He's all about tolerance as a consulting skill, so he sometimes brings people in like this to shake things up and exercise our tolerance skills. But beyond that, we didn't have time to learn much more about her. And her expression - I can't get that out of my mind - her life ended with her screaming. Her body was grayish blue as if someone had drained her of blood, but there was no blood on the floor," Sam shook his head as he reviewed the odd mix of facts for a theory.

"From the first day she took over as the receptionist, I liked her because she was so different from everyone else working there. She had a sexy French accent, a wit in her eyes, and she carried herself like an athlete - almost bullish. And she had this confident, wide smile as if she were a dark princess unafraid to take risks. She gave us much to tolerate, and we were just starting."

"Sounds like a fun group!" Barbara said, taking a swig.

"Some days, we are! Tolerance isn't easy, but it can be fun sometimes if everyone works on it. My most vivid memory of her is that first day. She stood up, turned around, and unzipped her dress far enough for all of us to see the jade tattoo of a dragon's tail strolling down the small of her back to a skillfully drawn, toothy mouth that would open and close when she moved her buttocks. She told us, zipper still down and all of us staring at her bare back, that the tattoo made her feel secure."

"' Do you like it?' I remember she asked;" they both laughed.

"You know, all of us did - men and women! She even gathered a crowd, and we applauded."

"How wonderful! This girl may have been too shameless for that situation, but I've traveled around the South Pacific to places where she would fit right in. Still, she doesn't sound like someone who deserves what happened to her," Barbara swirled her drink as if considering explanations for the girl's death.

"No, she didn't. One day, she was full of life, someone who could make a stranger feel warm and welcome while making her job seem easy. And the next day, those eyes," Sam took another swig and waved the stewardess over.

"And that's awful. But what do you know about this girl? She sounds like someone who thrives on taking risks;" Barbara was twirling her drink again.

"Sure, but she was young, and we knew she came from a different culture and didn't understand what might be inappropriate or dangerous in the US. She wore that same low-cut, black leather button-down top with the long zipper on the back every day she was there. Some might consider that a poor wardrobe choice, but most of us were willing to tolerate her choices while she adjusted. That's just how we roll."

Sam also stared at the glass as if the answers would stare back if he looked hard enough. Memories of the day mixed with the flowing curves of Moura's dark, naked, and lifeless body. The image was there whether he closed his eyes or stared at the glass. Sam was still bothered that the detectives seemed to suspect him of murder. He was only the one who reported Moura's death. Moura's death was hitting him harder than seemed reasonable for someone he barely knew.

"You know, I was on my way out the night before when she told me, privately, that she was embarrassed by her dress. She was in tears. She'd overheard some of the women there making comments. She said it was the only dress she brought with her. So I told her I understood her situation because I go to different companies and cultures and have to adapt by figuring out, as quickly as possible, how my 'normal' might get me in trouble. Some people can be cruel at first. She said she couldn't afford anything else yet, so I gave her something for a new dress. It wasn't much for me, but she seemed grateful. That's the last time I saw her alive. It's a mystery, that's for sure," Sam lay back and closed his eyes.

"Well, that was a good story, Sam Hale!" Barbara said. "I will let you sleep now; you earned it," Barbara pulled her sleep mask down and scarf over her face and curled up to sleep again.

1. 1. 1. 1. ======

Sam did not know how long he'd been asleep on the flight when he felt the familiar constricting feeling wrapping around his legs. And then, he was seeing through the eyes of his brother, Dixon. His legs crumpled as if they were no longer available. Sam snapped his wristband and felt no pain. He was experiencing Dixon's pain but felt no pain that was his own. Dixon felt nothing below the waist, and his headache was constant. Dixon didn't know if he had to go to the bathroom, couldn't feel his heart, and had no idea if his stomach was full. There seemed to be no end to the actions Dixon had to take just to be able to stand, eat freely, and make love to a woman. Sam was overwhelmed by Dixon's desire to free himself, get up from the chair, and walk away.

The room was silent. Sam watched as Dixon explored various systems on Dixon's laptop. The date and time on the screen showed Sam that he was seeing through the eyes of Dixon a few hours ago. There were connections to live sessions on servers worldwide, each reporting anticipation of his triumphant announcement today, each a compartmentalized view with a particular interest in the successful distribution of Dixon's new class of drugs.

Dixon scrolled through emails lauding Dixon's research papers. Dixon clicked on links to the work of scientists testing chemical structure charts binding sandalwood to various minerals, mostly nickel. Dixon clicked on another conversation thread about Shelby. There were pictures of Shelby showing her before and after growing the sandalwood roots. There were many notes and logs about Shelby, some of great length. Many emails documented her pain, her progress in controlling the roots, and how she learned to harness the growth rate at will.

Dixon checked another thread with many replies about a research paper titled "Managing the Aging Process with Sandalwood Root Grafts." The conversants referenced all the steps taken, findings, and methods. Many conjectured about the military benefits, especially battlefield surgery. Sam watched as Dixon posted to this thread that while the experimental results fell short of expectations, they had yielded valuable insights for future changes. Sam sensed Dixon's growing frustration as he tried to manage runaway expectations.

Dixon moved quickly to another folder and a document titled 'Business Plan.' Every page had a footnote with the mission: "Be the first human to live to two hundred." Although Dixon read quickly and Sam could not see much, he was able to see that Lifetimes of Pleasure was one of many ventures that would leverage science and business so that Dixon could walk. As he'd said in the email thread, Dixon made a few entries to the Risks and Mitigations section to affirm the risks.

Then Dixon reopened a spreadsheet with columns titled Guests, Lifespan, Foresight, Pledged, Paid, and Notes. Over one thousand 'guests' were on the list, with projected lifespans ranging from 60 to 150 years and foresight from 3 to 36 months. From the email threads, Sam learned that 'Foresight' was the agreed upon months before death that treatments would end and an accelerated aging process would begin.

Among those with no foresight months were Amy, Grace, and Avery- each promised ages 80. They were first on the list. Another single row promised age 65 years, a foresight of 12 months, and a pledge of a half-million dollars - the most significant pledge on the spreadsheet. All three showed they had paid in full. The notes showed Avery paid for all three. Dixon had crossed out many rows with a red line.

Sam stepped back from the vision to process. The "step back" was the first step he had learned to take before masking. Sam had created a safe place in his mind -- a small pool surrounded by a Japanese rock garden where calming meditation music was always playing. When a vision overwhelmed his mind or emotions, he learned to partially step back from a vision and move his thoughts to his safe place. From his safe place, he learned that if he could classify the vision, perhaps even name it if it was a repeater, he could mask it. Sam believed his profoundly personal and private safe place was secure because nobody but him knew it existed.

But this time, when Sam "stepped back" to his safe place to process the possible meaning of the red lines, his heart froze. He tasted the dank air of death and darkness. Something was waiting for him in his safe place. It was near his face, breathing heavily, almost as if it had been reading Sam's thoughts as Sam read through Dixon's eyes in a vision. Red, burning eyes seemed to look through him, coldly assessing him in this vision. Its breath smelled of rotting meat. Somehow, he knew it was Old-Red-Eyes, up close and personal.

"You must stop the Lamb," Old-Red-Eyes turned and spoke to others Sam could not see.

4.Havocer.

5 PM, Saturday, 1998-02-14, CHICAGO BODY CLOCK

10 AM, Sunday, 1998-02-15, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

10 AM, Sunday, 1998-02-15, NOUM; NEW CALEDONIA

Sam felt the familiar constricting feeling swirling around his legs again. He shifted his position in the airplane seat. He'd been half-sleeping during the last leg of his journey after a long layover in Sydney airport, this time from Sydney to Noumea.

This vision was not a repeater. Sam was "seeing" through a keyhole in time and space into a dark stone chamber. Old-Red-Eyes was seated beside a granite coffin, carving a section of python meat with two atrophied appendages that appeared to be its claws. It struck simultaneous blows from two butcher's knives onto the coffin lid.

"Schaumele will arrive tonight," the same giant python Sam had seen before hissed as it slithered into the chamber. Its two red eyes, recessed into a head the size of a basketball set atop a torso like a pilates ball, looked up. For reasons Sam did not understand, this python was one of the few to survive meetings with Old-Red-Eyes.

"I am aware, Arcturus," Old-Red-Eyes released a black, gaseous substance from its naval, contracting and twitching its naval lips to shape sounds around the emission Sam called "spew." In another vision of Old-Red-Eyes, Sam had seen a red spew from its naval melt a victim. Spew color seemed to matter, but Sam was still deciphering it.

"Yes, master Havocer, of course. I am your humble servant, "

"Old-Red-Eyes has a name!" Sam thought.

Havocer stabbed a piece of meat with its two-pronged claw and held it out for Arcturus as if feeding a dog. Arcturus hissed as he lunged for the meat. At the last possible instant, Havocer withdrew the meat to watch Arturus sail past its atrophied appendage.

"As usual, too slow."

"Yes, master - your brilliance - you are superior to us all, and your plans are perfect. We await your orders," Arcturus hissed, circling for another pass.

"All is going according to plan," Havocer spewed.

"And yet." Havocer toyed with another piece of meat while Arturus watched, intent on the moment for another lunge. "You have failed to eliminate the Schamele threat," Havocer spewed yellow gas. Yellow spews seemed to happen when Havocer threatened or warned.

"Yes, master. I am your worthless servant. Please, master, kill me now."

"You are indeed a sorry excuse for my consiglieri! How do you think it makes me look when you fail so miserably? I should end you." Havocer tossed the meat on the floor, where Arcturus lunged and gobbled it up.

"But we have more critical issues at the moment. The board has agreed that I, and I alone, can lead us to avenge our past and restore order."

"Yes, master. May I suggest a media appearance to announce the mission of your eminence? Would this not send the right message?"

"You see, there you go - press conferences! - this is why the board has lost confidence in your management. Your methods are too slow and subtle. No wonder they released me," Havocer spewed red gas as metal latches over Havocer's twenty-two other inset eyes opened to glare at Arcturus from around its bulbous head.

"This changes today!"

"Yes, master. Your plans are genius, as always."

"So now, I will clean up your mess," Havocer said. It chopped and stabbed another piece of snake meat. Then, releasing its metal mouth latches, Havocer unhooked the top half of its head from the bottom to reveal an immense cave filled with multiple layers of teeth that Sam called the "Thumper." Arcturus reeled back to a safe distance when the Thumper dropped open.

"Bring Schamele to me; perhaps then I will reconsider your worth to me," Havocer spewed a yellow-green fog. Sam had never seen this color spew before.

As Arcturus coiled to strike this snack on the first pass, Havocer tossed the meat into the Thumper. Arcturus recoiled in time to carefully evade the Thumper.

As Havocer swallowed or drooled - Sam was unsure exactly what was happening - its long tongue extending from below its neck seemed aroused.

"Go! Fetch!" Havocer ordered, spewing a dark green fog from its naval.

1. 1. 1. 2. ======

Damned visions.

5.Noum, New Caledonia

3:00 PM, Sunday, 1998-02-15, NOUM; NEW CALEDONIA

10:00 PM, Saturday, 1998-02-14, CHICAGO BODY CLOCK

After almost twenty-four hours on Quantus, including layovers at LAX and Sydney and a half-hour shuttle ride, Sam finally arrived at the Parc Floral Hotel on the southern coastline of Noum two calendar days after leaving Chicago.

Jet lag did not come close to fully describing what Sam was feeling. The journey had left him so tense that he felt transformed into a "new normal" pretzel of disorienting aches and pains. He was unsure which biological urge dominated - hunger, thirst, or sleep. Every strange smell seemed to fill him with nausea.

Sam was not surprised that his visions had consumed the journey. But it was unusual that the visions became darker and more intense the closer he got to New Caledonia. All he wanted was to hydrate, fall into bed, and sleep until he had to be up for tomorrow's meeting at the bank.

Instead, he entered a hotel room filled with greenish steam, spreading in a fog across the entire ceiling, fogging his glasses and hiding his view of what seemed to be a first-class room furnished for a king.

"Green fog. Of course," Sam said to no one. Sam thought the hotel's maid service must have left the shower running and wondered what kind of hole-in-the-wall hotel Dave had sent him to this time.

The wet green fog coming from the bathroom called for obvious action. The solution seemed simple enough - turn off the shower.

He dropped his suitcase and rushed to the supersize bathroom where the shower was in a corner before realizing there was no noise from a shower - a bit unusual. Still, it could have been one of those quiet water-saver showerheads.

He still was not giving this problem much thought when he pulled back the shower curtain and saw Moura naked and on her knees in the shower.

Great, another vision! Sam was not in the mood, but that never seemed to matter. He had never found a way to initiate or seek a specific vision, let alone shut them off when they arrived. Maybe it was because he was so tired, but this vision of Moura was more potent than any he had experienced before.

A grey, vine-like tree was growing roots over her buttocks and backside, wrapping itself around her body. She was writhing and screaming, but there was no noise.

Sam shouted her name, but again, there was no noise. He scratched and struggled to pull the roots off her. But the growing vines had a head start. She was already trapped in a kneeling position, leaving only her upper body to flop back and forth, trying to break free.

He felt helpless to stop what he was seeing. He wanted to stop the vision and edit this out of his mind, but the more he fought, the more vines appeared. The vines grew with relentless intention until they reached around Moura's neck, slowly strangling and twisting her head on its stem.

Her life ended with her face frozen in a silent scream.

A mist rose from the cold sweat of her dead body as the vines began to convulse, clearly drinking life and blood from her, squeezing her first, then gulping and swallowing until her body was wan and wrinkled. In contrast, the vines that had seemed wrinkled became supple. The mist became a shimmering purple and green haze.

As quickly as it had come, the mist condensed to fluid back into her, filling her with a strange purple and green fluid, returning her body to its original shape. The vines retreated from her body, leaving Moura behind precisely as he had found her at the office - lying on her side naked, her cold and dead eyes staring at him.

Sam felt as if the roots that had taken the life of Moura were still slithering in the dark, waiting to take his. Sam staggered back to the bedroom.

"What next? When will this ever end?" he demanded of the universe.

Suddenly, the fog lifted.

Standing in the middle of the bedroom was a short, dark, white-haired, wrinkled image of a man.

"I mean you no harm Shaumele. I am Moura's grandfather. We know you did not do this to our Moura. But some will accuse you."

"Of course, I didn't do this - I know that! I was home with my wife and barely knew Moura! Who is Schaumele?"

The man smiled the same smile Moura had flashed from her first day at the office.

"Have you seen the roots yet?" the man asked.

"What are you talking about?" Sam masked the truth while he considered calling the police.

"The roots in your dreams are from the sandalwood tree. Long ago, they grew everywhere on our island. The roots want you."

Sam hesitated. The roots he had seen for most of his life seemed dangerous and hungry. But Sam always masked these visions from the world and had told nobody. How could this man in a vision know about them?

"Why me?"

"They want your unforgiven soul when your life ends, which will not be long for you by the looks of things."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"I am not your enemy here, Schaumele. Did your doctor not tell you this? Your body cannot survive much longer unless you do something about it."

Sam was becoming angry again. So many people seemed determined to tell him what to do - his doctor, his boss, an angel named Moura, a lady tourist on the plane, and now this guy.

"You mean like change my diet, exercise, and quit smoking?"

"You will need to sacrifice much more than food and cigarettes."

"And why should I do that? Because some sandalwood roots I see in visions want me to?"

"No. Dark forces have haunted your life and will continue to do this unless you stop them. It will feel much worse toward the end."

"I've survived so far," Sam stepped over to the refrigerator to find bottled water.

"Is that what you want? Survival? Did you not ask many times to know joy in your life? Have you found that yet?"

"No, I have not."

"Because He is where the joy is. There is no easy path to knowing joy, but we hope you choose this path to know Him within you. Some have sacrificed much, including my granddaughter Moura, hoping to awaken you to this choice. But you must choose the path of your own free will."

"So you hope I choose this path so I don't become an unforgiven soul? Okay, sure, why not. Easy peasy lemon squeezy."

"I don't know what that means. With your permission, I would like to explain what's at stake for you. May I do that?"

"Sure, why not? Go ahead."

"At the end of mortal life, all souls go to another existence called the Holding to await judgment."

"So that's where we go for a ticket to heaven, right?"

"In a way. Many souls are quickly approved and ascend from Holding. They get tickets right away, as you say. All others do not get tickets. But before the decision to deny them tickets is final and they become dark matter, souls are given one last chance. They can appeal the decision to the King if they can show just cause for the appeal or ask the King for a mission of atonement. They are called Appellants. If souls have no grounds for appeal or fail an assigned mission, they become unforgiven souls. Your soul is an Appellant who was assigned a mission of atonement."

"What happens to the unforgiven souls?"

"They become dark matter unless the O gets to them first. The O are parasites that feed on dark matter. At first, the O was satisfied with waiting for Appellants to become unforgiven souls, which many did. But over the ages, the O hunger has grown. Now, they steal Appellants, trap them in sandalwood roots, and offer them a choice: Haunt living souls into becoming unforgiven souls or be used as food."

"So if I do nothing, I become an unforgiven soul trapped in a sandalwood pod in another existence."

"No. The O already trapped your soul in a sandalwood pod. Same as your unborn child. But the King freed you when you begged for a mission of atonement. Now, if you do nothing, your soul will lose the protection of the light and become dark matter. The King chose to free you for reasons we do not understand. But we have faith in Him, and he believes in us. If you succeed, you will ascend."

"I need to think about all this." Sam was not buying any of what this man was selling and wanted to end the vision. But Moura's grandfather remained standing in the center of the room, unfazed by Sam's attempts to reject him.

"What happened to Moura?" Sam moved closer to the man in this vision. When the man answered, Sam wanted to see every detail of the man's expression. His claim to be Moura's grandfather was something he could check.

"Moura was an Appellant like you. At the same time that the King chose you for a mission, He denied my granddaughter's appeal. The King told me in a vision that someone had to sacrifice to awaken you. He is testing my faith in His plan. When you found her, you could smell something?"

Sam had smelled something, even tasted it - an unfamiliar odor since he woke up from what had been his shortest night of sleep lately. The smell had a bite and a bright, higher note to it.

"Sandalwood?"

The man's eyes were sparkling as he nodded to confirm Sam's recognition. Sam had not mentioned the smell to anyone because he believed the smell came from a vision. Sam had learned early in life to mask anything that came only from his visions.

"You are the chosen Lamb, Schaumele. Your mission of atonement is to free the souls the O has trapped by putting forgiveness on them through prayer. But the O sees you as a threat to their food supply. For the O, you are a virus for which they have no cure. So they are angry with the King for releasing you. The O have spent your entire life filling you with self-doubt and hopelessness to try to stop you."

"Well, if what you say is true, I have much to fear. Let's see." Sam started counting with his fingers. "One: My visions will get worse and haunt me until I die. Two: I will die sooner than I think. Three: My mission includes freeing the soul of my unborn child." Sam raised his voice with each count. "Four: If I fail the mission, I become dark matter. Five: Since you are a vision, you may not exist anywhere except in my frightened mind, which is also friggin' tired and hungover. And Six: The big one here, I don't have any way of knowing what you said is the truth."

"Simon wants me to tell you something," his smile was fixed and unmoved by Sam's questions or anything Sam had said.

"He says he believes you are more powerful than you believe. Simon is also an Appellant. His mission is to guide you in using your gifts for the greater good. But first, you must try to become a better disciple. Simon is my teacher. And now he is yours. It will help if you are humble. He can only help if you surrender to this path. As I told you, you are here to help souls like Moura."

The man smiled, then was gone.

"What's with the fog?" Sam asked the room.

1. 1. 1. 3. ======

While exploring Noumea for the rest of the day was a tempting adventure, his Chicago body clock had not adjusted to mid-morning in New Caledonia. Sam was exhausted and fell onto the bed, hungry to sleep before exploring later, when he felt the leg constriction.

Then, he was in vision, watching Amy leave him. Sam could see Amy clearly as if standing amid her experience, invisible to her. Amy was waiting outside the front entrance of their apartment complex with a large, pink metal suitcase. She wore Sam's red plaid shirt loosely over her black dance tights.

Sam recognized this type of vision from experience. He could observe amidst someone else's scene as if a keyhole in time opened to him while also allowing him to remain invisible in the moment. Sam also understood the conditions of these keyholes. He could watch and listen as if receiving a puzzle piece but not interfere.

"I'm Shelby. You must be Amy?" The woman who emerged from a red minivan had pulled up before Amy. Shelby bore an uncanny resemblance to Moura - same height, fighter's stocky yet agile build, confident swagger, and sizeable open smile - yet distinguished by her heavily tattooed body and dark hair fully shaved on one side.

Sam also noticed Amy sizing Shelby up, noticing her muscular thighs and fighter's swagger. Sam knew from experience that Amy was clinically assessing the woman based on her years of training as a classical ballet dancer.

"That's me," Amy said. Amy had often explained to him that this type of dancer was not a classical dancer type - too stocky - more of a street dancer not made for the Nutcracker.

"He's Luther," Shelby pointed to a man seated in the passenger seat without taking her eyes off Amy. Shelby grabbed the suitcase and rolled it to the back of the van, pausing to eye Amy in a longing, speechless moment.

"You know, I'm a dancer, too!" Shelby seemed on the verge of making a pass at Amy.

"That's nice," Amy whispered when Shelby passed close enough to make her pass. But Shelby only opened the van's sliding side door for Amy.

"You sure you need that big suitcase? You know your mother will have everything else you need, right?" Amy huffed but seemed to enjoy how Alpha Shelby took charge of her choices.

Sam watched with growing disinterest.

"Okay, then, we're outta here," Shelby said, pulling the van door beside Amy closed, ran to the driver's side, and pulled away from the curb.

1. 1. 1. 4. ======

"Damned visions," he thought. They could be a blessing or a curse. Sam never knew what to expect. This time, he had to watch Amy leave him, likely never to return.

6.Barbara Slack.

3:00 PM, Sunday, 1998-02-15, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

3:00 PM, Sunday, 1998-02-15, NOUM; NEW CALEDONIA

At the same time, a middle-aged woman named Barbara Slack was nursing a pina colada at the Sydney Airport first class lounge. She'd been there for almost an hour, engaging in her favorite pastimes - flirting and playing poker with a clergy member, one grifter to another, she would say.

"Barbara Sears?" The young man who approached her appeared to be well-built and charming. He asked for her using the name of an alias, a non-existent anthropologist on sabbatical from the Smithsonian.

"Yes, and you are Jason Mitchell?"

"Yes, Julie sent me to meet you here. Is there somewhere we can talk in private?"

"Of course!" The lounge was like Barbara's second home. She ushered Jason to an open couch in a private room designed especially for impromptu private business meetings, where a waitress took Jason's drink order.

"I am the Director of NRJC, an international private security organization. I don't usually do these interviews, but Barbara, we were all very impressed with your resume and happy to learn you might be available. As Julie probably mentioned, we have a particular job in New Caledonia that we need your help with. And if this goes well, you have a considerable upside."

Barbara Slack didn't buy any of it.

Besides Jason not appearing to be the typical grizzled, underpaid, unappreciated Director of a private security agency - especially an organization that needed more than three letters to identify itself - Barbara had bigger fish to fry. The CIA needed to know why known associates of Dixon Hale - specifically his brother and wife - made reservations today to fly to New Caledonia separately and why, also today, other known associates of Dixon Hale called one of her aliases, Barbara Sears, to interview her for a job in New Caledonia.

Barbara Slack did not believe in coincidences.

So Barbara Sears, aka Barbara Withers, the non-existent anthropologist, would gush to hear what Jason, the non-existent agency director, wanted to say to her. Jason was today's entertainment - the mouse who thought he was a cat.

"You must have a fascinating job! And you are so young and handsome to be a director - very impressive!" The non-existent Barbara Sears gushed.

Jason was not easily charmed - one of those straight-shooter types.

"Well, I don't know about that. But Barbara, we also were very impressed with your record with the criminal justice system." Jason pulled a single sheet of paper from his pocket. "Ten years in federal prison for murdering her mother as a young teenager, and her more recent history of credit card fraud..." He went through a list, seeming gleeful as he added more details to his leverage.

Barbara Slack smiled. She was the authority on the carefully crafted record of the non-existent Barbara Sears, the wealthy granddaughter of inherited wealth and a social anthropologist with the Smithsonian because she created it. A few well-placed arm twists, favors, and bribes ensured Barbara Sears existed on paper.

"I have personally looked into what happened to you as a teenager - real tragedy - and I'm sure that you acted in self-defense, unjustly prosecuted. But you were a model prisoner, so you were wise and careful. Then there is all this credit card fraud and recent large cryptocurrency transactions. As you can see, we have enough to send you back to prison for a very long time."

Jason had certainly done his homework and swallowed the bait.

"Yes, you do," Barbara nodded, knowing she had to offer humiliation to learn anything valuable. "Things with the credit cards got out of hand, so I dabbled in some crypto to pay them off. I'm just not good with numbers, you know? I study people. Debt has no life to it, just some numbers," she said.

"Barbara, you did the right thing to take the early retirement package. Smithsonian did not appreciate you." Jason reached out and put his hand over hers. Jason was not the best liar, but his feigned empathy was passable.

Barbara Slack didn't care. What was important was that Jason felt fully in control. So she sent a tear down the way, leaving him little reason to doubt her surrender.

"Can you tell me more about this job, Jason?" Barbara Sears asked, lowering her eyes to add to her subservience and respect for a hiring manager.

"Certainly! I work for a holding company called Lifetimes of Pleasure, aka LOT, headquartered outside Noum, New Caledonia. I report directly to Dixon Hale, the owner."

Barbara Slack was an expert on Dixon Hale, a middleman for black market dealers on the OFAC list, among other activities. Dixon was on every CIA watchlist because they could track foreign assets through his deals. He was often referenced in daily CIA briefings because Dixon often traded in bleeding-edge medical equipment. The CIA considered those deals to be strong indications of the health of wealthy billionaires and government officials who could afford expensive medical care.

"Who?" asked Barbara Sears, playing the vulnerable pawn in Jason's game.

"Dixon Hale demands privacy and pays our private security firm to protect that, so I cannot say more. Which brings us to the reason we called you. Would you like to hear more?" Jason was sitting upright now. He set his drink aside, seeming filled with the need to impress his recruit.

"Such an important man I am having a drink with today - of course!" said Barbara Sears.

"This next part is highly confidential. I hope we can trust you to keep this a secret for now?" Jason leaned in toward Barbara Sears and lowered his voice to a whisper.

"Of course, Jason!" she said, leaning in a bow to hear his lowered voice.

"Dixon has a brother, Sam Hale. This brother, Sam, is a real boy scout. He is about to be charged with the murder of a young woman in Chicago. He didn't do it - we did, long story there - but Sam doesn't know this yet. The company he works for will send him to New Caledonia to work at a bank there on a job Dixon has created. Sam will arrive before anyone in the US says Sam cannot leave the country. As you can see, our Sam Hale is already over his head."

"You need a babysitter," Barbara smirked. She typically passed on these sorts of routine jobs to the recruits. Most of the people they protected were criminals themselves. However, Jason's version of Sam Hale matched the man she had arranged to sit beside on the flight to Sydney. She needed to size him up for herself. In her report later, she said Sam Hale might be unique - an innocent and good man who deserved their protection.

"We don't care what you call it or how you do it; just keep Sam Hale away from the north end of New Caledonia and Dixon Hale." Jason handed her an envelope of cash. At that moment, Dixon Hale had Barbara Slack's full attention - never a good thing among those few who knew Barbara well.

7.Dixon Hale.

7:00 AM, Monday, 1998-02-16, NOUM; NEW CALEDONIA

Dixon Hale was agitated. The arrival on the island of his older brother, Sam, was an urgent matter akin to trespassing on private property.

"This is Dixon Hale. Put me through to the President." Dixon did not deal with underlings, so he always had a direct, private number for every President. As far as Dixon was concerned, he owned the island like his two superyachts. Petty interference like this from the new President was insubordination.

"Please hold."

The sound of elevator music set the mood for the deflection policy surrounding this recently elected President. Dixon had little patience for the policy.

1. 1. 7:01 AM, Noumea

"May I help you?" the President's secretary asked Dixon in a trained, calm, and respectful tone one might expect from the office of the highest elected politician on the island.

"No! I will only speak to the President," Dixon emphasized "only."

"Please hold." More elevator music -- a different mix this time, upbeat jazz, which stopped before the line clicked a few times and went silent.

Dixon Hale started his multi-billion dollar empire in New Caledonia over twenty years ago, overcoming every obstacle with guile and ruthless agility - except an automated deflection policy.

1. 2. 7:02 AM, Noumea

"Chambre de commerce. C'est de la part de qui ?" The man asking who was calling the Chamber of Commerce sounded pleasant enough. A minion, probably in his early thirties, fielding calls for a useless organization of no consequence. Dixon disconnected the call.

Dixon hated his wheelchair most when people ignored him because they assumed he was not a physical threat to them. He needed to remind this new President who was the boss.

1. 3. 7:03 AM, Noumea

After briefly browsing for the number, Dixon Hale called Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude had put more than one of his many mixed martial arts opponents in the hospital for months because he was unafraid to break some rules.

"I want you to shut all our mines down today."

"Now?"

"Right now. Send everyone home. Then call the other mines and tell them to do the same. Then you get our trucks to stop deliveries at the docks. You got all that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you take ten of our guys down to Noum and wait outside the President's mansion. You think you can do that?"

"Yes, sir." Dixon hung up the phone. Jean-Claude was a good dog because Dixon financed his underground martial arts career.

Dixon searched his contact list for an attractive, naive reporter. He recalled a young woman - Missa Besnier. Yes, Catherine's daughter would send the right message. It seemed the President was not the only one who needed a lesson today.

"Missa Besnier, C'est de la part de qui ?"

"There will be no mining on New Caledonia until we meet with the President. We will be outside his mansion, waiting for a meeting." He hung up. Any English-French translation work she needed to do was not his problem.

1. 4. 7:04 AM, Noumea

"Savos, Dixon Hale." Dixon's call to Savos Boucher would be short. He did not pay the man to think. "Yes, yes. Listen, you will be hiring Sam Hale, yes? Well, he is my brother. No, it's fine. There is nothing we can do about that now. But he does not know I am here. No, nothing about Amy or Grace, either. Keep it that way. He is a Boy Scout, for God's sake! No, listen, this is what I want you to do. You let him do his job, but keep him near you. And make sure Luther and Shelby don't let him out of their sight. I will take care of the rest. You understand?" Dixon hung up the phone. Savos was his lead guard dog because he paid him to take orders, not think.

The anticipated call from Luther finally came a few minutes later.

"Tell me something I don't know." Dixon put the call on speaker as he rolled away from his desk.

"She will do it," Luther said. Dixon pumped his fist in the air. He had never stopped blaming his brother, Sam Hale, for his life in a wheelchair.

"But we cannot trust her," Luther warned.

"Keep a close watch. We only need Barbara Sears to keep Sam out of the way. Trust has nothing to do with it."

Over the past three years, Dixon Hale had carefully constructed a network of invisible powers far beyond the reach of law enforcement to complete his research. Now that his research was closer than ever to bearing fruit, he needed Amy's fetus.

Anyone who stood between him and his chance to walk again was unwelcome, especially his brother Sam and his damned visions.

8.Simon.

8:00 AM, Monday, 1998-02-16, NOUM

Simon Tjibaou was easy for Sam to find in the hotel lobby the following day. He was the only older blind man holding a cane and waiting. Sam had decided it was Dave's idea of a joke to hire a blind man to escort him around New Caledonia, but his role was not to reason why.

"Simon?" Sam asked.

"Yes. And you must be Sam. Good morning, sir. We have a car waiting for you. Courtesy of Nakanak Partners. Where to?"

"L'Caledonie Nationale Banc. I have a 9 AM meeting."

"There's no time to waste, then." Simon reached his hand to Sam's elbow, and Sam found himself leading Simon to the bell captain.

"Good morning, Simon." The bell captain hailed a young, heavily tattooed woman standing beside a turquoise, four-wheel-drive Jeep on the far side of the circle drive. She quickly put on a black leather hat, jumped in the Jeep, and pulled around until the passenger door was beside them.

As the Jeep drew near, Sam saw her half-shaved head and instantly masked his recognition. She was the woman he'd seen taking Amy to New Caledonia.

"I'm Shelby. Nakanak Partners sent me," she said while staring ahead through dark sunglasses without looking at her passengers, her hands draped on the steering wheel.

"No time to waste, Shelby. We must be at L'Caledonie Nationale Banc for a 9 AM meeting."

"Welcome to New Caledonia, Sam."

The thirty-minute drive took them north from urban Noum into what quickly became a two-lane paved road through pastures of tall green grass lined by telephone poles and the occasional billboard.

Sam felt Simon find his shoulder from the back seat and pat him briefly as he felt the familiar constriction around his legs.

Then, Sam was in a vision of a vast desert. The scene before Sam evaporated into a fire of dancing flames all around him. The weight of his body pulled his knees to the ground. Breathing was possible but laborious. A long black snake, at least twice his height in length, was slithering around his knees like a cat seeking a stroke. The prime beneficiary of the gravity of the place, this snake had no fear of its human prey.

"We must seek change through love and patience." The snake's voice was charming, but all fricatives and vowels made it challenging to understand, especially when whispered with all the tension one brings to one's dying breath.

"Where am I? Who are you?"

"You don't know this place?" The snake hissed as it inhaled. "You built it." Again, the furtive hissing.

"These are your memories."

Sam felt cold, even though the land around him was rugged and hot. Unkind, blowing memories from distant times formed dust devils in the distance.

"Each time you have a moment like the one you are having now...." Breathing required the snake to expand, a transparent effort Sam felt in the constriction around his legs. "Every love, every misuse of power," It breathed, inflated, and hissed. "The memories of all your lifetimes are stored here." It breathed.

"I do not understand. Why am I here now?" Strangely, Sam was breathing at the same pace as the snake now. And his voice had changed. He was also hissing precisely like the snake when he spoke. When he looked down, his legs were gone, replaced by the tail of a snake.

"You have overcome many worldly desires, but these memories remain...." It breathed, expanded, and hissed again. "... Your soul chose this lifetime to escape...." Breathing even longer. "I am Arcturus - put here to haunt this lifepath with your memories. Without them, I cease to exist. You are here now because you seek to take your soul back. The O cannot allow this."

9.Savos.

8:50 AM, Monday, 1998-02-16, NOUM, NEW CALEDONIA

Shelby pulled the Jeep into a parking lot about the size of two basketball courts, facing a decrepit, one-story cement building surrounded by a barbwire fence. Sam led Simon to a grey and rusting door, masking his helplessness as he passed through three doors, multiple cameras, and a staircase down to an expressionless security guard seated behind bulletproof glass.

"Sam Hale for Mr. Boucher," Sam told the guard who checked his passport and visa, looked at Sam, Simon, and some paperwork, then nodded and buzzed Sam in through the door to his right.

"Just you. It would be my honor to escort Simon to the lobby," the guard said to Sam.

Sam passed through another door, another long doorless pea-soup-green cement hallway, and an X-ray screening. This young, armed, expressionless guard wearing a short-sleeved uniform reminded Sam of the man he saw in his vision of Amy leaving him with Shelby - the same bulging muscles and similar tattoos.

Finally, the guard opened the next door for Sam to pass.

"Welcome to the bank's data center. You just left the first layer of security."

The guard escorted Sam with a sluggish, bow-legged gait down another long cement-block hallway.

"Behind that wall is the computer room," the guard pointed to the right as he rattled off its defenses with a grin. "Lead-lined ceiling, lead floor, six-foot reinforced steel walls, bomb-proofing, infrared tracking --we're red dots on a screen--and every hallway has machine guns at both ends."

The guard swiped again at the "Office of Infomacion Systems, L'Caledonie Nationale Banc" door, stepped to one side to reveal an eerily familiar office space, and pointed to the far end. Dinge, blue smoke, and the smell of old socks filled the air. Any sudden movement behind Sam might trigger an international incident. At the same time, in front of Sam was a sweatshop the size of the CDU office packed with rows of women in cubicles using depreciated technology from a display case at the Chicago Museum of Science, subtitled 'Typical Computer Office -- circa 1975'.

In the back corner was a room filled from floor to ceiling with aging piles of green bar reports that likely contained the entire island's financial history dating back decades. At the center of the piles was a man behind a large desk, licking a stubby hand and plastering stray white cowlicks against his balding head.

"Mr. Boucher?"

"Yes?" Savos looked up from a report he'd been reading.

"Hi, I'm Sam Hale. Dave Lanquester sent me." Sam stepped close enough to pick up the amplified odor of dirty socks and leaned over to extend his hand in goodwill.

"Yes. Of course." Savos Boucher extended that clammy hand toward Sam. Although Sam wanted desperately to wipe his hand off immediately after the handshake, he knew he could not. Sam's at-will contract gave Savos Boucher, the man Dave had sent Sam to impress, the authority to send Sam back to Chicago.

"Good. Make a place to sit somewhere over there." Savos flipped his hand to the far end of his office, filled with stacks of green-bar computer reports. After a brief search, Sam found a space on the floor, moved a stack of paper with a thump of dust, brushed away the dust on top of the pile, and sat on his makeshift chair.

"Good trip?" Savos had long since returned to the paper he'd been studying.

"It was fine." Sam masked his headache, a horrible case of jetlag, and hunger. His adopted attitude was a professional reflex, the product of many experiences in places like this where nobody cared about Sam Hale's health and well-being.

"Well, good. Let's see -- says you've worked on this system for three years." He set the paper down and looked at Sam. "So, did you make it better or worse?"

"Better... sir."

"Just Savos. And now the boss rewards you with this fancy hotel and your very own tour guide? Well, don't go thinking you've earned anything from me. It's survival of the fittest around here. People have to prove their worth every day. To me." Savos suddenly stood and craned his neck, then stood to see something happening on the floor outside his office.

"Hey!" He seemed to spit it out loud and hard as if firing a bullet intended for the far end of the row of desks. Sam turned to see two women break a huddle and hurry back to their desks.

"You clear all meetings with me first," Savos said as he sat down, picked up the phone, and punched a few numbers.

"You just had your morning break," he barked into the phone, glaring at the two women. Savos slammed the phone down as he looked at Sam to see if his potential for wrath was apparent.

"That'll be your desk, right where you are, for a while. If you work out, we'll get you a chair. Coffee?"

"No thanks. I had too much on the plane already." Prisoner Sam Hale expected terrible coffee.

"Right. Good. Ours tastes like shit anyway. Well, the news is that you can't start for two or three weeks." His accent was thick and heavy with his French origins, but his English was understandable.

"Two weeks?"

"You got a hearing problem?" Savos seemed to unleash questions as if he were flogging Sam.

"It's not that. I just thought -- I mean, Dave said this was urgent..."

"What's the problem here? I got the list of hardware that your company sent me, and the vendor told me it'd take two weeks to get it all here."

"You knew...?"

"...that it'd take that long? Yup. I was testing your company. I wanted to see what kind of service you'd offer. So far, you're nothing special. You're a day later than promised. You need all that fancy hardware?"

"We do. Most of our customers already have the hardware, so they have no problem installing our software."

Savos punched two numbers on his phone and stared in Sam's direction while waiting. "Americans - big shot technology, lots of money, no common sense."

"Ya, he's here in my office with me." Savos gestured for Sam to shut the door to his office. "Ya...." Savos inhaled, sat up straight in his chair, and listened with an air of respect laced with fear. "I see. It didn't appear in any --. Well, you know the shareholders. You had no choice. I'll look into this as soon as I hang up. But as far as Mr. Hale goes - ya, he just arrived.". His mitt covered the phone. "Have you checked into your hotel yet?"

"Yes, sir."

"He has. All right, I'll pass that along. Are we still on for three?... Hah! Twenty bucks say he wears those damned red socks again." Savos laughed. "Well, okay, have a good day. Right. Goodbye." Savos hung up the phone, still smiling from the conversation.

"The boss wants to meet with you later this week," Savos said, sitting back. He took a long drink of steaming coffee from a nearby mug that said, 'Do it right! Do it my way!' and studied a report before flinging it to his desk.

"We lost a lot of money on loan defaults last year," Savos exhaled, registering his disgust with the bank. "That's why we started looking at software that gives us access to credit data last year. But we couldn't find anyone to do everything we wanted for the right price. That's when we had to go to the US." Savos crumpled the report and pitched the ball into his wastebasket.

"We'll all be at the funeral services for Avery tomorrow at 11 AM at the Cathrale Saint Joseph," Savos continued.

"I did not know he died," Sam said, remembering that Amy had not spoken to Avery Deforest since her parents divorced when Amy was ten.

"You didn't know? We thought this was why CDU sent you here." Savos was enjoying the moment.

"The last I heard was that Avery was very sick."

"-- Some say there are certain -- 'unexplained circumstances' -- surrounding Avery Deforest's death," said with a sinister hiss.

"But we need you to behave yourself for the next two weeks. So you'd be wise to stay far away from the funeral," Savos whispered. His smile was calculating - as if sizing Sam for a coffin - when he leaned down, opened the bottom drawer of his desk, pulled out a worn map of the island, and unfolded it over everything else on his desk.

"Go see this. Be sure to see this bay. And visit this island -- here. Go here for a good beach. Eat in this area. Don't eat up here - you'll get sick. Go anywhere you want except up in the north," he said, drawing a red dividing line on the map. "There are groups up north who are always in trouble with the government for money laundering and dealing illegal drugs. So you stay around the South end, sit on the beaches, and watch the girls. As soon as we get the hardware, you can start working." Savos pushed the map with an envelope under it toward Sam.

"Great! May I go now?" Sam took the map and envelope, respecting Savos's implied confidentiality.

"Of course. Certainly. Jean-Claude will show you out. The Jeep is yours for the next few weeks." Savos stood up, shot his other greasy hand out of his pocket, and fused it to Sam's unwilling hand.

"Grace called me yesterday. We go way back - I introduced her to Avery. She said you are getting a divorce?"

"Maybe - " Sam did not appreciate his business in the hands of someone like Savos.

"By the way, where is Simon?"

"Out in the lobby," Sam said, attempting release from Savos's ripe stench.

"If there's a problem, we can have him replaced. He may be your boss's old friend, but he's not the only tour guide in Noum. I have a few in mind."

"He's fine."

"Stay in the South and out of trouble, Mr. Hale."

10.Simon.

9:30 AM, Monday, 1998-02-16, near HIENGHENE

"Come on, let's get out of here." Sam grabbed Simon's hand, put it on his shoulder, and guided him back through the underground security gates and out to fresh air. Shelby was nowhere in sight, but the Jeep was still there.

"Well, no Shelby to drive us. Looks like we are on our own now."

"May I suggest wine? Some of us enjoy our croissants with a glass of fine white wine. Perhaps if I were to recommend a place for this?"

"Great! Road trip, I'm in!" Sam found the nearby village north of them on the map, where Simon guided Sam to an upscale wine shop.

"I'll wait here. Andre will help you. Tell him you are with me." Simon sank into the bench seat.

The shop smelled of fresh cedar and potpourri. A wobbling hardwood floor clattered his arrival, and a man about Simon's age appeared from behind.

"Andre?"

"Yes?" Andre was a slim, average-height, fit, fifty-something man with a goatee and a streak of white hair within an otherwise long black mane that ended in a ponytail.

"Simon sent me."

"Ahhh." Andre manufactured an economical smile. "The Croissant and Chenin Blanc. Coming right up!"

"So you know Simon well?"

"Since I was a little boy. Everyone knows Simon. Gros bonnet. He's a big shot around here."

"So you know Nakanak Partners? Is that a company, or just Simon?"

Andre's smile dropped. His mouth became a thin, fastidious line below his oversized nose, and he stopped what he was doing.

"Nssst!" It was the exact sound of condescending, jaw-smacking scolding Sam's father often made. Sam wasn't sure what was happening. Was Andre scolding him? What was it about his question that deserved a scolding? Or were pretentious sneers all part of Andre's way of hazing American tourists asking too many questions? Andre seemed guarded and prepared to teach Sam a lesson, whatever the reason.

"Simon works for Nakanak Partners. They give the best tours on the island. Many Kanaks consider wearing the Nakanak black top hat and red tassel a great honor."

Sam had read the US State Department info for tourists, so he knew the Melanesian Kanak people were seeking independence from French rule of New Caledonia and were about to sign a "1998 Noumea Accord" with the French in a few months.

"And you are not one?" Sam was still curious about the customs and where the lines were.

"I am not a true Kanak, at least not enough to be a Nakanak Partner," Andre emphasized the word "true" in a sarcastic tone.

"Really? Why?"

"Even many true Kanaks cannot wear the Nakanak uniform," Andre continued, relishing his role as island gossip - with Sam's encouragement.

"There are only twelve Nakanak partner positions. All the chiefs on the island must choose a partner. It is a great honor, higher than a chief. Nakank Partners represent our culture. Simon is the eldest. There is nothing he doesn't know about this island, and he loves to teach new students. You are fortunate he has chosen to be your guide."

"So I hear. Do you know a girl named Moura?"

"Yes, her father was an important man - a Nakanak. Losing her was a great sacrifice. But if that is what it took to bring you here, it must be that you are where you need to be."

"Moura was sacrificed?"

Andre stared at Sam for a long moment, gazing through him, then laughed. All the veneer of hazing seemed to disappear.

"Simon said you are a true Kanak but more blind than he is. I see now what he means."

Sam had many questions. He wanted to know more about Moura, who Simon Tjibaou was, what he meant about Sam being a "true Kanak," and if Simon was related to the Kanak independence movement leader, Jean-Marie Tjibaou, who died almost ten years ago. But something about Andre's posturing told Sam that more questions could be dangerous. So, Sam decided to keep things casual.

"You are Kanak?"

"I am. Like Nakanak Partners, many try to get along with the French. They have bigger guns, and it's good for business," Andre's smile radiated the same magnetic, holistic energy as Moura and Simon.

1. 1. 1. 1. ======

A few minutes later, Sam emerged from the shop with food and wine and more questions than when he entered. The wind caught the ocean air and whipped paper from the ground.

"Now what?" He wanted to ask Simon much more. The food and wine had somewhat calmed his nerves. Despite exhaustion and fatigue, he began feeling adventurous.

"I thought you might like to see the real Noum, not as all those brochures told you it is."

"Now we're talkin'!"

Sam drove the Jeep north, away from the hotel's manipulated grandeur and into the monotonous beauty of New Caledonia. The chance to ignore local politics and enjoy being a tourist began to calm him.

"Ocean's everywhere, isn't it?" From any white building with its red tile roofs, sizeable green vegetation, and dark humus soil, he could glimpse the ocean in at least three directions. The island was an interruption in the blue sea.

"The ocean master surrounds Noum on seven sides."

Sam let his gaze drift across the face of the ocean master. He saw anglers, boat touring companies, ocean cruisers, and seafood restaurants - lives that depended on the ocean. And everywhere, to his untrained eyes, those lives seemed to flow with the same leisurely mid-morning pace of the waves lapping the shoreline of the nearby beaches.

Sam might have continued to believe in the veneer of tranquillity if he hadn't just been to the bank. Sam wondered how many of these islanders had been anywhere else in their lives. What made them stay on an island? Didn't they want to see the rest of the world?

Simon sniffed the air again, "Ahhh, iodine. Baie de L'orphelinat?"

"Yup, that's right." According to his map, the shore road along Baie de L'orphelinat -- Orphanage Bay - was built on a wall of stones about two meters above the water. It framed the bay off to the left, where Sam saw sailing boats of all sizes, shapes, and colors anchored.

"I've been smelling that fishy iodine scent of shellfish since I arrived. So what made you so sure it was Baie de L'orphelinat?"

"Every inlet has its sound. This one creates a curious echo with the buildings."

"And you can hear that?" Was this all a joke? Maybe the man isn't blind.

"Sam, take the next right onto a dirt road." When Sam swung the Jeep around the next steep bank off to the right, he saw the dirt road hidden by the curve and slowed down, but he was still moving too fast when he turned into the sandy incline. Dust filled the air around them as the Jeep skidded into two deep ruts.

"Stop the car, please," Simon spoke with compelling power. Sam slammed on the brakes, but they continued to skid off the main road before finally stopping. When the dust cleared, he saw they had arrived at the base of a mountain.

"Can you see the red fruit on the trees? Up high?"

Sam craned his neck out the window. Looking up under the forest's canopy all around them for a slight hint of red proved more difficult than he'd expected.

"Nope. Nothing there." He pulled his head back into the car.

"You sure there's not something there?"

Sam searched for a restaurant, gas station, or any excuse to leave the car. Simon lives in his castle in the clouds, he thought. He has probably been blind so long that he can't tell the difference anymore. No reason to make a big thing about it. Best to play along and see where this was going.

"I remember this from when I was a boy. Find a thick tree trunk -- one wrapped around a smaller tree inside. Once, these islands were famous for this tree."

"There are plenty around us."

"Okay. Find one that is more white than the rest. It will be a round, slightly greening trunk, a straight and tall pole."

"Yes, I see one."

"Good! Now, let your eye float up the tree. Let your gaze not be distracted by anything else as you follow the tree to its top. From the ground, the color will be difficult to see. Look for the fruit hidden under a leafy green umbrella."

Sam was silent as he searched the trees.

"There is something there! At the crotch of the branches, under some of the leaves." Sam drove up the dirt road a bit for a better look.

"That is the sandalwood fruit. Very sweet. Bats love it. The tree bears fruit by slowly killing another tree to survive."

1. 1. 1. 2. ======

Sam started the Jeep moving again, accelerating down the unpaved road in a blast of dust. He sensed that Simon had made a point beyond Sam's understanding and did not want to reveal his ignorance.

And then Sam began feeling a constriction slithering around his legs from which there was no escape. He had not been aware of himself pressing hard on the accelerator until the Jeep slammed into potholes and bounced out of the well-worn tire ruts.

"Perhaps we should slow down, sir." Simon smiled. Or was it a grimace? The Jeep slammed through a deep hole in his side. Sam would not have trusted any vehicle other than a Jeep to handle rugged roads like this.

"Please. Slow down, sir."

"This is a Jeep!"

"You are angry with the makers of this car?" They slammed through a deeper hole on Simon's side.

"Nah," Sam was enjoying testing the widely reported strengths of his favorite off-road vehicle to throw Simon off-balance.

"Are you angry with me, then?" The Jeep tipped toward Sam's side and jammed Simon into his seatbelt.

"Look. Nothing personal, but it's weird - that tree and how you're always smiling," Sam yelled above the sound of the Jeep rushing over the dirt road.

"Weird? What is weird?"

"range - Strange." Sam had been studying some basic French, but something was getting lost in translation. Simon tipped his head side to side, and his brow furrowed as if trying to understand.

"You are angry because I smile?"

"Not because you smile, but because you smile no matter what happens! How can you keep doing that? It's not natural! You should at least be frustrated. Or at least be concerned about finding a better route out of here? Aren't you even uncomfortable?" Sam could feel his many masks collapsing, defeated by dread and sleepless nights.

They hit another hole that momentarily popped them out of their seats. The road was almost two feet below the ground level of the forest around them. As they approached a corner, the Jeep suddenly slammed into another hole, and then they heard a loud explosion.

"Damnit!" The Jeep flew up to an almost vertical position. Yet somehow, the Jeep's suspension managed to keep it on course despite being flung from the road like a loose pebble. Sam gasped for air as he struggled to stop the car as it landed, pressing down on the brakes with all he could bring to the job and turning the wheel hard into the turn. A blur of branches and small trees flew by. The Jeep skidded around in the sand before coming to a stop. Red dust choked him as greenery flew across his line of vision. Sam felt the unfiltered depths of his self-loathing, raw and exposed.

Neither Simon nor Sam moved as their trail of dust fell upon the green pasture in silence.

"Hole," Simon stared straight ahead, smiling and unmoved.

"Oh, thanks for that! And would you please stop smiling?"

The clang of a hubcap springing free to land a short distance away in the bushes broke their silence.

"You knew about the hole, didn't you? So now I suppose I have to change the goddamn tire! I wonder if they even gave us a spare." Sam pulled himself from the Jeep. His knees were still shaking, and his hands were a faucet of sweat. He was raw inner oscillations now, unmasked and exposed to dreaded ruin.

"How might I help you?"

"Well, you could get us some of that water. There's a cooler with bottled water in the back seat."

"Of course, sir."

"And you could stop calling me "sir." We nearly bit it just now. That makes it all right for you to call me Sam, right?"

"Certainly. Sam."

Sam began looking around for ways to lift the Jeep while Simon wrestled the cooler. They had dug themselves a rut. He tried rocking the Jeep back onto the flat area a short distance away but made no progress.

"Haven't changed a tire in a long time," he said.

"I'm sure you'll do an excellent job."

"I don't know. I don't think anybody could do a good job with these spare tires and lousy tools. They must think you won't have to use these," Sam said as he flipped a tire iron and a compacted jack onto the ground beside the tire. He set the tire iron on the first lug nut and tried and failed to turn it. The lug nut seemed fiendishly frozen in place.

"Ahh! They never figure a real person will have to change one of these."

Simon offered him a water bottle.

"Thanks."

Sam swallowed a single gulp.

"Listen, I'm sorry about saying those things back there," Sam said as he stooped to try again, putting his back into it, and grunted. This time, the nut squealed, and Sam spun the tire iron in his hand.

"You like moving very fast?" Simon asked. He was smiling again.

"I don't like wasting time."

"Then why limit yourself to a car?"

"Dunno. The best thing around, I guess." Sam thought Simon was suggesting a helicopter.

"I can see I am not the only blind man here."

"Whatever. Look, how about you follow your nose to those croissants and bring me one?"

Sam set the tire iron on the second nut, pulled up, and met failure, but this time persisted until the nut squealed.

"rrgggghhhh... Gotcha," Sam grunted as he spun the long stem of the tire iron in his hand until the nut fell from the tire, then sighed and kneeled back onto his heels. He felt all his muscles relax as his head dropped to his knees.

"Look," Sam began after a few moments in that position, "Why don't we call it a day when I get this tire changed? I feel like we're just wasting each other's time."

Sam threw his weight into the third lug nut and groaned until the tire iron spun again. Simon was seated in a lotus position under a nearby tree and wearing that same smile.

"We can stop at the next decent place for lunch on the way back to the hotel," Sam said as he threw himself into the final nut and quickly had the tire iron spinning in his hand.

"Okay?" Sam asked, not expecting a response.

In rapid succession, Sam replaced the flat tire, let the Jeep drop off the jack, tossed the blown tire and the tire iron into the back of the Jeep, and jumped into the driver's seat to wait in silence, tapping his hands on the wheel, while Simon tapped his way back to the passenger seat.

"According to the map, we're not far from Yate. There'll be somewhere to eat there, right?" Sam gunned the engine and rocked the Jeep back and forth until it was back on the road.

1. 1. 1. 3. ======

Sam was driving with more caution now.

"Ahh," Simon let out an exuberant exhale when the road went from dirt to smooth tar, and the land around the road opened suddenly onto the ocean.

"We are near the village."

"Yes, I see it ahead." Sam found a cafe, stopped, and went inside to get food, while Simon found a log in a grassy area overlooking the ocean.

Fifteen minutes later, Sam returned carrying a bag of food.

Sam tore open one of the sandwich wrappers and took a large, impatient bite. He barely swallowed as he gulped the sandwich while pacing and smoking his second cigarette.

"C'mon. Let's get going," Sam said as he stubbed out the unfinished cigarette.

"It is not our custom to eat in such a hurry, Sam. We live in many ways different from yours. Our noonday meal can take three, sometimes four hours. Nobody moves around or works during this time."

"Yeah? Well, I'm not like most people. Let's go," Sam said. He got back into the Jeep and started it up. Sam felt powerless. His life seemed to have become nothing more than a series of reactions to Dave, Amy, Savos, the island's pace of life, and now Simon.

"The soul needs time to digest its journey," Simon climbed back into the Jeep.

"Great. You digest. I'll drive." Sam pulled out onto the paved road heading north. Simon leaned back, his eyes half-opened, eyelids unwavering, and smiling.

"Take the road until you pass a dirt road at the base of a mountain on the left." Simon's voice had returned to his native monotone.

Sam tapped a cigarette from its pack.

"Life will wait for you, Sam. You think life is something to rage against when it does not do your will. But you'll never find joy in that direction. Here, we practice patience with the journey so that we can know joy."

Sam lit the cigarette, dragged it deeply, and dangled it out the window. Another thing he learned from his mother was how to ignore a shaming lecture by jumping his mind to incomplete puzzles he invented involving prime numbers and spelling to occupy his mind.

"Damned radio doesn't even work," Sam wanted the trip to end, but the hotel was at least an hour's drive in the opposite direction.

"Have we passed a flower shrine with a header called "The Holy Virgin?" Simon asked.

"Nope. I haven't seen anything like that yet."

"When we come to that shrine, a beautiful church will be off to the right. We need to turn there." Simon must have worn Sam's powers of distraction down because when he saw the shrine, he considered turning right, at least at first.

"You know what? I'm tired. Why don't we return to the hotel and call it a day?"

"We must go there." Simon was smiling again.

"Okay, look, let's get this straight. My company is paying you to take me where I want to go, not where you want to go. Right?"

Sam went through two drags on his cigarette.

Simon absorbed himself in a peaceful silence.

"Sam, I do not wish to cause you needless pain, but Chief Paw is waiting to meet you there. He is Moura's grandfather."

11.Chief Paw.

Monday, 1998-02-16, 2 PM, near HIENGHENE

A red dust trail enveloped them as Sam slowed to cross a rickety, one-lane wooden bridge into the village. They'd been driving on smooth pavement until ten minutes ago when they'd turned off on Simon's instructions. Even then, the dirt road had been manageable. The bridge was the first real driving challenge of any kind that they'd encountered.

"Did you tell them you think I'm a Kanak?"

"I have told them you are the American that Dave Lanquester sent to work at the bank. May I tell them that you can teach them about computers?"

"I dunno about that. I'm not a good teacher, Simon. But I do need something to do to keep me busy. Sure, why not?"

"Good. You must know a few things before arriving at this village. First, the Chief is most pleased because you are not French. They are suspicious of the French and would not be friendly toward you. Second, we must ask for the Chief as soon as we arrive. He will not present himself, but it would be bad for you to talk to many people in the village without first talking to the Chief."

As they approached the village, Sam noticed some black plastic piping snapping down the river and along the road. The signs of modern plumbing work in progress starkly contrasted with the natural surroundings.

"Lotta work going on around here. Seems like they take their time getting it done, though," Sam said, noticing that there was not a crew of workers that he might expect to see around a construction zone at this time of day in the US.

"Sam, we are not nervous people. We like to live while we work. Dave said he would give you pictures, right?"

Behind him, off to the left, Sam saw a shadow lurking, watching, waiting, and talking on a satellite phone. He'd have to deal with that soon.

"Oh yeah! His grandfather, Nathan, took many pictures of people here during World War II."

"This is very good. The Chief likes to look at pictures of his ancestors. Be sure to give him pictures of people only from this valley. Can you tell them apart?"

"Dave sent a lot of pictures and some notes. It seems his grandfather was a detailed note-taker. He wrote names, places, and dates when he took the pictures. Sometimes, he even wrote what people were saying. We can do that, sure."

"Okay, this is very good. The Chief will be more friendly when he sees those pictures of Nathan. But you will need more. I bought a few things in the city - canned sardines, metal fishhooks, and a steel machete. It will also be good for you to give this to the Chief."

They passed a shrine to the Virgin Mary overflowing with candles, incense, and flowers. A short distance beyond that and off to the right was a single-story building with a simple wooden cross at its peak. Beside the building was a patch of land dotted with simple headstones, surrounded by fresh flowers, colorful objects, and small stones.

"There are a few more things I must tell you. You would be wise to display a great interest in the food. The people here do not wish to be embarrassed. They expect you will not be happy with their lifestyle compared to Western standards. So if you want to eat well, make them feel you welcome their ways."

"I will eat what they eat and sleep where they tell me. I promise."

"We will not be staying for sleep, but you have the right idea. Now, one more thing, and this is crucial. Women do not speak directly to outsiders, especially outside men."

"No problem. You forget I'm still married." They passed several more significant buildings, similar to the church. However, one building appeared to be some military station, judging from the flagpole and the picture of the Eiffel Tower over the door.

"This is important, Sam. Please remember this. Keep to the men, and all will accept you. Only converse with the women as a group. If you find a woman attractive, do not show any sign of this or risk drawing the men's anger."

A chicken ran across the road, chased by a boy not more than five. Sam slowed the car to a crawl and eased into the village. Ahead in the center of the street, five or six young children were throwing objects toward the telephone wires, trying to knock off towels and other things already hanging there.

"You may park anywhere by the football field." A few men passing a soccer ball between them stopped their play and headed toward Sam and Simon. The men seemed more protective than menacing.

"Only speak or move slowly. People here get frightened if visitors seem nervous around them."

Sam shoved the gearshift into Park and was immediately overwhelmed by the same odor of burning rubbish he'd smelled at the airport. Simon handed him a few niaouli leaves and told him to rub them on his hands and face. As promised, the instinct to gag disappeared. He wished he'd had this before he met Savos.

"Ahhh! Much better, this stuff works, thanks!"

"Bring the sack," Simon instructed, "and do not forget your pictures."

"There's a big pile of yams in the center of the village," Sam said to Simon as they walked past single-story homes from which women and children poked their heads to watch the commotion. A ten-foot-long mound at the center of the surrounding houses was a pile of dirty brown yams.

"Harvest time. It is when we give thanks to the gods for the harvest. The men gather the yams together and dance around a big fire before dividing them among the villagers."

An attractive woman with long dark hair caught his eye. Sam guessed that she was around his age. Maybe it was the gentle way her exposed shoulders fell from her neck. Or the way her curves seemed to melt gently one over the other as she worked through a pile of yams at the end of a long table. To Sam, each movement was a graceful dance, like a flower unfurling to invite the wandering bee.

"Careful," Simon whispered, tapping Sam with his cane. Simon was not nearly as blind as he seemed. Her eyes lowered as Simon and Sam approached. Without staring, Sam continued to watch her as she picked up a baked yam from the pile on the ground beside her, slid her large knife lengthwise through the yam, and pressed each end toward the center until the steaming flakes inside moved in disarray toward the surface.

"Louya," Simon smiled. He seemed prepared for Sam to catch Louya's eye and vice-versa.

"Is she...?"

"She has many asking for her, but she is stubborn."

"Stubborn?" It seemed that when she'd cut the yams earlier, her movements and glances had hinted there might be a time and a place for him. Perhaps.

Sam hadn't realized how long he'd been gazing until she stopped and slowly raised her eyes to caress Sam's eyes in a quick, genuine smile. Then, as if nothing had happened, her smile disappeared, and her eyes returned to the next yam in the pile.

"You should ask the Chief to let you walk with her later," Simon encouraged. Sam shrugged and did not smile. Simon's warnings were still fresh, and there was no sense in encouraging gossip.

12.Felik.

Monday, 1998-02-16, 4:00 PM, near HIENGHENE

Dinner was a village event. Sam had never seen anything like it in his life. Families spread out to their various homes to eat together, but all the families were visible to each other. Simon and Sam joined the Chief at a covered but open-air platform. Chief Paw, whom Sam recognized from his visions as Moura's grandfather, was seated cross-legged at the head of a long, low wooden board that was not much more than a thick plank.

With his shoulders hunched, spine curved, and head lowered, Felik pointed to a seat beside Simon, opposite Louya, before sliding in beside Louya, giving careful attention to her domination of their shared space.

The food was mashed yams, hot coffee, fried bananas, and bread, all hues of brown and white. Everyone else sat in staggered opposition along the entire length of the table.

Sam did not understand what they were saying but enjoyed being in a group that seemed generous and loving and made him feel included, which appeared to be how Chief Paw governed.

"We love to bring new people to our table, Sam Hale! Any friend of Simon's is a friend of all of us. Welcome!" Grandmother said, speaking in English for his benefit. Grandmother -- Chief's wife -- passed each dish by handing them to Louya, seated on her left. Grandmother clucked, patted others on the shoulder as she served, and laughed gracefully as her clan began eating.

"I am so proud of Felik," Louya said in a high, bright voice to Grandmother.

"But he is such a sensitive boy," Louya continued as if uninterrupted. "He is so smart but worries too much about everything. The other mothers are always telling me this! I wish he had some friends his age. When they bully him, he always comes back to me."

Sam did not appreciate Louya complaining about how Felik's behavior reflected on her, as if Felik was not there. Louya's behavior triggered unresolved emotions about his mother. Still, he masked his emotions and thoughts with neutrality as if the conversation were none of his business.

Grandmother opened a jar of strawberry jam, an action met with approval and anticipation by the Chief.

"He is a joy to have in our classroom," Grandmother nodded at Felik as she tried to pass the jam jar toward him. When Louya intercepted the pass and began spreading the jam on her yams, Sam recalled his mother passing food around their kitchen table and his anxiety to evade rebuke in his rush to eat. Again, he masked his emotions and appeared every bit the pleasant guest.

"We always love your strawberry jam!" Louya oozed the compliment while setting the jar beside her for Felik to take. Felik managed a furtive eye roll, undiminished at the sight of Sam witnessing it, as he took a small portion of it for himself before passing the jar to his left. While Felik behaved like a typical pre-teen boy, his pursed lips, tiny head shakes, and eye rolls suggested he took everything she said with a grain of salt. For a third time, Sam masked his desire to save Felik and focused on finishing the meal on his plate.

"Luther bought what's left of a '48 American Jeep today," Grandfather growled.

"Can I see it, Pap?" Felik asked.

"Why? Just more junk," Chief Paw growled again. Nobody spoke. There seemed to be a lot more to the topic. Finally, Chief threw his bread into his empty plate.

"...#$)*^!! Luther," he shouted, looking at Grandmother while pointing his finger at Louya.

"What's he saying?" Sam asked Felik.

"He says Uncle Luther," Felik began. Louya glared at Felik, scolding him with her look for interrupting the Chief. Whatever Felik did, it seemed, Louya had a tight grip on how it reflected on her.

"Luther is my grandson," the Chief interrupted to speak to Sam in perfect English.

"They joke and call him 'Lucky' because he is not," Grandfather looked around the table.

"Luther and his sister," the Chief glared at Louya, "do not care about family, just like their father." Tears formed in Louya's eyes as she tried to defend herself from an attack that seemed part of a much more significant, long-running disagreement.

"And I am too old for this," the Chief concluded.

For a fourth time, Sam masked his emotions. He was unprepared for the Chief's brutal honesty and how it triggered unresolved emotions from his youth. Sam felt terrible for Louya and Felik and was no longer hungry. He just wanted to leave.

"Luther does not belong here anymore," Grandmother said, putting her hand on the Chief's hand before she spoke. "He is not one of us -- he belongs with his father -- out there on the ocean. He needs to leave. That boy has too much strut!"

"A lazy man who wants to be a boy." Chief spit the word 'boy' as though it represented a matter he'd been angry about for a long time.

"And now he wants this woman -- some tourist," Grandmother said.

"It is time for that boy to marry and have children." Grandmother looked at Louya and said something to her that Sam did not understand.

"Mama, maybe you can show Sam around the village." Felik's interruption of the silent soul-staring contest between his mother and her grandfather seemed practiced and intended to prevent an imminent, angry outbreak. But the tension was too high.

"Not now, Felik!" Louya's tone was cold and harsh. "How often do I need to tell you not to interrupt while the adults talk?" Felik flinched as Louya raised her hand, then seemed to decide otherwise and abruptly stormed from the hut.

Sam started to follow her, but the Chief held his hand up and shook his head. Then, while staring at Felik, the Chief stood and waved his hand, a signal that seemed understood by all to mean that the meal was over and everyone was to make themselves scarce--except Felik.

Simon rose from his seat and took Sam's elbow, motioning to Sam that it was time to leave. It seemed that Simon did not need eyes to see. They made a muted show of gratitude to Grandmother for the meal. Then Simon and Sam left, leaving Felik slumped forward like a wilted flower, pressing his elbows to his twitching knees and staring at the floor, preparing to face the judgment of his ancestors alone.

13.The After Dinner Effect.

Monday, 1998-02-16, 8 PM, near HIENGHENE

Simon was unusually silent for at least ten minutes while Sam drove back to Noum.

"Louya is a proud, healthy young woman, yes?" Simon asked, breaking his silence.

"Yes, she is - something."

"She takes risks to impress you. God has sent her to be with you and work with you in your spiritual journey together. It would be best if you did not judge her too harshly. There are many sacrifices ahead for both of you." Simon's tone was factual, not judgmental.

"How can you know that?"

"I have seen it. Louya is an outcast. The Chief will not speak directly to her. But her soul has already chosen to love and watch over you."

"How can she know that? We barely know each other! I just met her today. She cooked the food and ate with us. And she certainly didn't seem like an outcast to me."

"When she was fifteen, she killed her stepfather, a Tangan. She went up north to Poindimie and shot him dead. She used all the bullets in her gun on him. That was the day we believe she lost her ko."

Sam slowly exhaled after a long pause to process the incongruent, sordid background of an entirely different Louya.

"Why would she do something like that?" And, he thought, did he want to be watched over by a woman capable of that?

"Her stepfather was no good. Everyone knew that. He was Tangan. He was hurting Moura, the woman you found dead in your office. Many say it was because she was Kanak. He even took up with a young French mistress in Noum while still married and beating Moura."

"So why isn't Louya in jail?"

"We took care of it. We did not want French courts to decide, so we pled temporary insanity. In exchange for peace between the Tangans and Paw's clan and Moura's freedom, Louya agreed to work for her stepfather's Tangan clan."

They turned right onto a road that followed the shoreline, passing a marina on the left where hundreds of anchored boats of all types and sizes were. Sam read the sign to his left: "L'Anse Vata'." Sam thought a car might be following them when the suspected black sedan took the same turn right turn a few lengths behind them.

"Louya's grandfather is the Chief of the Paw clan. He holds Louya's mother responsible for the work Louya must do." They were silent until they were well beyond the boat and heading toward a minor port of sailing ships. "What you saw today was Louya visiting. She lives in the city."

"There are no crowds on most beaches during the week." Simon seemed relieved to return the conversation to his role as a tour guide. "But this beach is also under the wind. On the weekends, when the winds change direction and start to come from the West, tourists come here for fun: you see them racing at great speeds in the bay to or around that small island called L'Ilot Canards --or beyond to that bigger one called 'l'Ilot Maitre.' There's a small hotel on that island called the 'Escapade.'"

"Who was Moura?" Sam was not ready to change the subject and enjoy more island trivia while he kept an eye on the tailing car.

"Louya's step-sister. Same mother, different fathers. They were very close. Louya has already sacrificed much to prepare for your work together."

"And Felik ... ?" Sam asked, staring out the window at a marina and a sign that said "Port Plaisance," unsure if he needed to know.

"I wanted you to meet Felik tonight. Even if he does not know it now, his highest self has a mission to serve your mission to free souls," Simon began.

"I'm sorry, Simon. Before you start recruiting people to support a mission where I need saving, can we back up a few steps? I've been thinking about this since the Chief explained my mission. The whole idea of a mission still seems too rich for my blood. Missions are what bored billionaires usually call their ego trips. I support missions with short-term deliverables and work with higher-ups to bring some reality to their missions. I don't own missions."

"God's missions are not ego trips. God wants a relationship with each of us because He is love. He wants nothing more than to share His joy with us. But to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, He created missions. You need faith to believe that each of us is uniquely qualified for our mission and that missions serve the same purpose for all His children. Felik has special gifts that require deep energy connections to the earth he is not yet ready to handle. One day, Felik will save you. But right now, Felik's mother will not let him go. So, if you need a short-term deliverable to support your mission, convince Louya to let Felik get the training he needs."

14.The Waterfall.

Monday, 1998-02-16, 10 PM, NOUM

It was late evening when Simon delivered Sam to the hotel from the village. Sam fell into bed, exhausted after spending the remainder of the drive in silence and anxious about the car that had been tailing them all day.

Then, Sam was back in "The Waterfall" vision again. But this time, standing atop a narrow, weaving path to a ridge on his right was the image of Jesus as Sam imagined Him to be, His arms outstretched as if He were pure sunlight seen from deep, blue water.

"Be not afraid. Come to me, Schaumele."

The words shot through him like the order of a general to a lowly soldier pinned down by enemy fire, answering his prayers and offering him a path to restore his soul.

When Sam reached the ridge, he saw only a steep decline into a cool, dark forest that filled him with the familiar dread that punishment lay ahead. But the gentle hand of a friend seemed to be leading him to descend through the menacing slap of lingering roots that felt like his mother's harsh shaming.

Suddenly, the roots were behind him, and a light-filled path opened into a grassy plateau where a solitary, one-story building stood with its back to the base of a snow-capped mountain range. A corrugated steel roof covered the length of the deep building. Maybe it was a meeting hall or perhaps a church. Carved wooden totems flanked the open entryway. Sam had seen similar totemic carvings of fierce faces stacked atop each other like these flanking doorways to other buildings in villages around the island.

But in this vision, the tongues on this totem were enlarged, the cheeks triangles, the eyes bulging and shaped like diamonds, the hair in a single, comb-like object, and the neck was a spindle. Perhaps these were ancestors, gods, or both.

Sam felt one foot lifted and placed before the other as a gentle hand brought him to the threshold of the building, where he saw two square openings high up on either side of the single room, providing the only sunlight that allowed him to see all but the darkest area at the back. Symbols of the cagou, one of the national birds of New Caledonia, were painted in blue on the white walls.

Behind him, the forest had become eerily quiet. A cool breeze blew from the ocean behind, filling the air as it rushed past. Even the birds had become silent, and the crickets had stopped chirping.

"Why are you here?"

Simon's disembodied, demanding face hung in the air, inches from Sam's face, seeming to have materialized from the darkness.

"I don't know." Sam's stomach twitched with anxiety again as he felt guided toward the back of the building. There, he saw the entrance to a tunnel descending into the side of the mountain. Two voluptuous women, each wearing a black pendant hanging from a necklace of substantial gold links, pulled a black curtain from either side. They swept their arms toward Sam in a welcoming arc.

"You know." Simon pointed. "Down there is what you came for."

"What is it?" Sam's heart was racing.

"Answers you need to understand so you can return to yourself."

Sam wanted to run from the faint light deep in the tunnel, but he had to know. He felt his feet guided forward into the tunnel.

What answers? What is down there?

Simon and the two women were smiling, but he was not comforted. His vulnerability to dying and their incongruent smiles filled him with dread. Words from the Emily Dickinson poem he learned to sing in his high school chorus rang through his mind. "The Butterfly in honored Dust Assuredly will lie, But none will pass the Catacomb, So chastened as the Fly."

But each breath drew him downward toward a speck of light and a rising humming sound. As he moved toward the light, the sound grew to a loud rumble as if threatening to collapse the tunnel, then faded into background noise when he finally emerged into a spherical room carved out of rock. While the room seemed to protect him from imminent collapse, he sensed a deception in the emptiness and loneliness of the place. A lit yet unmelted candle stood at the center of a small wooden table.

And then Sam realized where he was. He felt the familiarity of forgotten pain. This room had defined the emotional boundaries of his early childhood. His mother had created this room to ensure he did not exceed her limitations, rules, and punishments. More than once, he'd been ashamed of wanting the freedom to see beyond.

Sam sensed his mother was here, yet somehow detached, so he could not see or hear her. But he knew this room was in his mother's heart, waiting for his return to her control.

"I'm angry about what you did to me. Can't you tell?" Sam shouted.

Memories of his childhood ripped through him like a cold wind - his mother ordered "no!" followed by yanking, spanking, or slapping him on the head or hand. Every day was an emotional roller coaster that demanded his full attention to her emotional needs. Some days, she was Sam's victim; others, Sam was trying to divide her marriage; others, whatever he was doing did not interest her; and on her worst days, Sam was driving her toward a nervous breakdown.

"Mothering is not about threatening a little boy!" Sam shouted again.

Memories of listening from his room while his mother recounted stories of the day, breezing past undermining facts to her intention to manipulate his father to punish Sam. She knew how to wind up the sadist and deny knowing anything about what happened next. She often told Sam that she and his father made a good team.

"You abused your power!"

Sam could still hear his father stomp up the stairs and pound open the door. His father usually said nothing, which somehow made it feel worse. He didn't need to because he'd given his orders to Sam in past beltings.

"Turn around, drop your pants, and bend over," his father said the first time as if memorized from an instruction manual. His father seemed to enjoy his power in these moments, but Sam could not be sure because he turned away too quickly, not wanting to look his father in the eyes while this happened. He often wondered in his angriest moments later what would have happened had he not turned around. But at the time, he did not want to give his father's rage more reasons for more beltings.

After that, Sam knew what to do - wait for the inevitable sting of the belt, wait for another, and another. Sam lost track of the count after the first one. He remembered his father saying something like, "Don't make trouble for your mother, and we won't have to do this again," as he left Sam alone to endure the remaining sting until it all left. He remembered crying after the first time, but after that, he built a wall in his mind so that whatever happened, it was not to him but to his body.

"Why were you so afraid to accept me as I am?" Sam asked his mother.

Sam sat down against the wall, staring at the candle, afraid to leave or stay, waiting quietly as he always had in the stillness of his cell. He sensed something here to know, but he did not want to go on remembering, so he pulled his knees up to his face, rocking back and forth.

"I just wanted to be loved."

Instead, Sam learned to fake acceptable behaviors - anything to reduce a sentence. He could cry, apologize, or offer to repent, even though he didn't mean it. Whenever they believed they'd taught him a lesson, Sam learned to distrust his feelings. How could he experiment, try things, and risk failure? He had learned to fear what they would do if he tried.

Ultimately, they sent him into the world feeling humiliated, angry, awkward, and helpless.

Sam bounced to his feet and tried to escape the room.

"Please don't go." His mother's voice.

"I can't stay - this is too hard."

"Try. Please? For your good, you need to forgive us."

Sam hesitated, dreading what might come next. More shame? What other closets might come flying open? What else did he have to relive? He felt small and alone in a cold room with only a candle.

"I am sorry. I never wanted to be a mother. You were the first, so I had to learn how. I know I did not love you enough to let you go. I wanted you to stay here forever, always needing my love." Her voice sounded strained and choked.

Then silence. Then Sam heard his mother crying.

"I always believed you'd make some girl a fine husband. I hoped she would love you the way you needed."

"You taught me to believe I couldn't ever have that, ever win out there, ever know joy!" he shouted.

"But that's all in the past now. You have to move on."

"Really? Then why is this room still here? Why is this candle still lit?"

"In case you ever needed a safe place."

"This is not a safe place! Haven't you been listening? Did you know I helped Amy get an abortion before we got married? I didn't think I could be a good father. I didn't want any kid to go through what I went through. I didn't try to stop her. Hell, I found somebody who would do it." Sam was crying as he shook his head and looked around the room.

"I did all that because I'm so angry!"

With that, Sam grabbed the candle and swung it full circle, daring her to stop him. He expected something might happen, but nothing did, so he held the candle ahead of him and turned to leave.

"I want you to stop with this room!" He knew he didn't need anywhere he felt unsafe to exist. He was well up the tunnel before the candle seemed to withdraw into its wax momentarily. Then, just when he thought it had blown out, it rushed in a blaze to light the way ahead.

"He is right. We don't need this room anymore," he overheard his mother tell his father - a conversation remnant about banishing him from his upstairs bedroom to the basement room so he would be away from everyone else in the family living upstairs, but now it was about this place.

The tunnel rumbled and shook, throwing him against one wall. A sharp rock stabbed him in the shoulder, and his head banged against another stone. He tried to step forward up the tunnel and out, but each step brought a jarring blow as if the tunnel were lashing him for daring to leave.

The mountain came alive. A torrential storm above whined in a rising pitch. A cold, wet wind blew down the tunnel, making escape more difficult, especially on a slippery, treacherous slope. Sam fell to his knees more than once. The tunnel was collapsing. Rocks were falling behind and around him. He knew his hands and legs must be bleeding in many places, but he couldn't feel their pain.

An explosion erupted from inside the room behind him. He turned to see a sharp blue-white light flash from the room, so he lunged and stumbled up the remainder of the rocking tunnel and hurled himself onto the dirt floor of the building before the tunnel collapsed behind him.

As he lay panting and coughing on the dusty floor, trying to recapture his breath, believing he was finally safe, a fierce, howling rain blew through the building's orifices as if to say that punishment was due for having ventured into the tunnel.

Believing the fury wasn't over, he struggled to overcome his now twisted left ankle and exhaustion. He plunged through the open door of the building. Darts of rain pierced his skin as if he were their primary target. He hobbled across a clearing into a dark forest, lunging and running along whatever path was open until he fell, slipped in the mud, and rolled down a hill. Suddenly, too late to stop, he was mid-air over a river, falling into the water far below before he could swallow enough air to keep from drowning. He immediately felt the dull thud of his hip ramming into a large rock as he swept past. The hip pain stayed with him and weakened his will to struggle. Ice-cold water surrounded him.

He was drowning, sure that this was the punishment he deserved once again and that this was the end of it all. His face broke the surface of the water above. He needed air, but water filled his lungs.

Then he disappeared into the river again, no longer feeling the bumping rocks or hearing the rain or the wind. He tried to remember the last time he'd seen a sunrise, sunset, or the name of their family dog when he was a boy. He regretted not forgiving his mother. He knew she loved him on some level. After all, she didn't owe him anything now, and he didn't owe her anything anymore. They didn't even have to talk to each other if they didn't want to. He wanted to tell her he loved her. But if this was the end, he could never have the chance to go back and tell her that.

He was almost unconscious when the rapids subsided into a flat stretch where he could float on his back but barely breathe. He was spitting and coughing but had enough energy to navigate and then crawl to the pebbled shore, where he collapsed, exhausted and struggling to release water from his lungs.

Soon, after catching his first few breaths without water, he looked back at the river rushing down from the mountain of fears that had held him in place for so long and breathed again.

Simon appeared beside him.

"This is good, Sam. Now you are ready to forgive yourself for believing you are not loveable because of the way your parents treated you when you were a child."

15.The Star of Sandalwood.

Tuesday, 1998-02-17, 1 AM, NOUM

"Sam! Hurry!" The knocking on the door was sharper and more insistent this time.

Sam opened his eyes and took in the modest furnishings of his hotel room - another interrupted dream. He was no longer in the vision of The Waterfall. Still, the vision was so physical and seemingly tangible that it drained him emotionally.

"Okay. Okay." He stumbled out of bed--his watch said 1 AM--and headed for the door. He checked through the security eye and opened the door to the limit of the security latch.

"Louya! What are you doing here?"

Sam remembered Dave's general policy instructions for all engagements: "Don't get caught up in the middle of their politics. Keep your mind on the job."

"Won't security cameras track you here?" Sam was looking for any excuse not to get involved.

"Hotel security is upgrading all their security cameras. All the cameras are down for the next few hours."

Sam already knew Dave would say that Sam was insubordinate for getting involved with local politics, and he only had Louya's word that the hotel could not trace this visit at an odd hour to him. Sam must have hesitated longer than she thought reasonable because her shoulders rose and slumped as she huffed.

"Please, Sam, let me in so I can explain. Simon said I could trust you. After you hear what I say, I will leave if you decide not to help us." At that moment, Sam looked into her eyes and saw her courage.

"I'm not agreeing to anything," Sam said as he unlatched the security latch and let Louya inside.

"Do you not trust me?" she asked as soon as she was inside his room.

"Simon says I can, and I trust Simon. But I don't know you!"

"You know more about me than most people. My family welcomed you to our dinner table. And you listen to Simon. Simon said I could trust you, and he told you we are to work together, right? Sam, I want to be with my family, raise my son, and be at home and in peace, where I belong. Instead, I must come to this hotel every night and give massages to protect my family from the Tangans. Have you ever done something you didn't want to do to protect your family? Without your help, I will give massages until I am old, and then I will only be good for changing sheets and soap," Louya sat on the room's only couch and cried. Sam sat beside her, and she leaned into the hug he offered.

"This was a bad idea. I don't know why I thought you would understand. You still do not know why we brought you here! Sam, listen to me. You are not just another selfish tourist traveling through life. No, this Amy is a confused little girl who said something mean. You are here for reasons much bigger than you can imagine."

"I'm sorry about this, but I only see the consulting job, and then I'm gone."

"This is the Star of Sandalwood ring." Louya showed him an ornate ring with an enormous blue stone at its center.

"Moura needs this. It is my freedom. It is the freedom of my people. But if the Tangans find me with this, they'll kill me."

Sam couldn't move, and he couldn't think anymore. Louya needed him for something, but he was struggling to trust her. He certainly didn't want her to get killed over a ring.

"We need an outsider they won't suspect to get this out of the hotel, delivered to my brother, and come back here before the cameras come back on. Will you help us?"

"I'm sorry. You picked the wrong guy to help you. Amy left me to come here because I let her down - I didn't give her what she needed. I'll probably disappoint you the same way if you give me half a chance."

"No! Your wife did not see you, but I do. Your spirit is old and true. I have seen it. You were born bigger and more beautiful than any lesson anyone tried to put on you. We need to get these ideas out of your head. Do not lose hope because much love is ahead for both of us."

"How do you know that?"

"Every night, Felik must pull a raft out on the barrier reef into the ocean and unload a boat bringing drugs to the island. He does it for the same reason I work here. We owe our people. We love our people, and they love us. Did your wife love you that much?"

"I don't know. I have never known a love like that."

"Well, you need to help us, and I promise you will get back seventy times whatever you give in love. That is the promise Jesus made to us."

"I believe that. But not so fast. Did you kill your stepfather?"

Her eyes widened momentarily, and she turned away, then looked back at him directly.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He was beating Moura. She was my sister and needed my help."

Sam couldn't remember ever caring for anyone as much as that.

"My grandfather has been angry with me. He does not want trouble with the Tangans." She twirled the ring between her fingers.

"Where did you get the ring?"

"The Tangans. When the Tangans stole this ring from us, they took more than just me, Felik, or Luther." She looked up and, perhaps, looked at Sam for the first time. "So I took it back from my Tangan master tonight." She shrugged. "He did not deserve to have it."

"What do you mean? You just took the ring?"

"Don't worry," Louya gently touched Sam's shoulder. "He doesn't even know what happened yet. He is busy with the security upgrade,"

"So why get me involved?"

"God has brought us together, you understand? I did not pick you, Simon did not, and David Lanquester did not. No. Moura knew she was part of His plan long before she went to America. She agreed to go because we all love you. You are here because it is God's will that you help us."

"What?? No, I don't think so. I'm supposed to get the bank set up and be out of here, not get into the middle of some tribal war you want to start. My job is to install software and databases. I do it all the time. Did Dave tell you that I would help you with this?"

Louya glared at Sam.

"It's good that you know how to do things that will take us to the future. But you have lost your ko. You wear your loss in your eyes." She patted my shoulder. Sam looked away. How did she know?

"What's your point?"

"You are not tough or mean like you want us to think. You are not like most men. They do not care about anything but themselves. They are selfish tourists of life, always trying to make you like them to make the journey easy on themselves. But when you try to be like them, it all goes wrong. That is why the beautiful good in you also limits your success. You cared about me and my family - we all saw it. I see a gentle person whose heart knows much better than his head. I do not fear you." She took his hands in hers.

"Maybe, but I'll never be anything more than what you see."

She ran her hand across his cheek and down to his chest. "Do you care about me?" Her hand brushed against his thigh.

"No! I mean, yes! But - no!" Sam pulled her hand away. "Look, you've got me all confused. You helped me to relax after a long trip."

"Now you lie. Inside, you're not like most men. When you found out your wife never loved you, you still felt ashamed for marrying her but did not want to hurt her feelings." She reached up to rub his neck. He groaned when her fingers found the tension in his neck and shoulders.

"You know, many men come to this island from around the world. Most men don't tell their wives about the way they play. They're afraid of what their wives might do. They don't feel guilty because they don't care about their wives' feelings. You are different because you have had worldly success through many lifetimes. This lifetime, you have a spiritual reason for being here that is much more important."

She moved beside him on the couch and cupped his face.

"Sam, please, we need your help, but there is no time. Still, this must be your choice. Listen to your heart, and you will know the right thing to do." She placed the ring in his hand and kissed him.

"I need you to trust me. Sam Hale, your soul has the fate of my people in your heart. And you have a great heart. So I need you to follow your heart now. It knows the way. You must not be afraid to follow your heart."

Then Sam saw a pillar of light energy extending from her fearless heart. He had seen these visions of other people's souls and tried to ignore them most days.

"Aren't you afraid of dying because of a ring?" he asked.

"No. Death is only another place in God's heart. What is to fear?"

"Depends. How dangerous is my having this ring?"

"The hotel has spies everywhere. So here is what we want you to do. We want you to walk down to the beach. Carry this ring in your pocket. Go to the hotel bar by the beach. Others will be there because many tourists gather at this hour with jet lag. Order a drink to-go. Pay with this," Louya handed Sam a folded US $20 bill.

"Do not stay for a conversation with anyone. Just say you are here on business. Do not say more; just take your drink and walk down to the beach. We want you seen walking around the hotel for the same reason many others are outside at this hour. Someone may tell you not to leave the hotel beach because they are supposed to tell all guests that. So do that. Do not walk fast, just casually."

"The hotel sits inside a triangle surrounded by ocean. About halfway around, there is a beach wall with benches. One bench is opposite the pier. Sit there, finish the drink, and leave the cup behind the ledge. Then follow the beach around until it returns you to the other side of the hotel. If you do all this, the hotel staff will remember you had a drink, walked along the beach, and returned to your room. That is all."

"What about you?"

"I have to leave for an appointment in five minutes, just like any other day. I will work until morning. Then my sisters will drive me home, like always. My master will still be asleep. We will be gone when he wakes up and finds the ring gone."

"Later this morning, meet Simon in the lobby at the same time as you did yesterday and check out with him there. Security may search your luggage before you leave. Please do not argue with them. Since you are here on business, they will let you leave when they find nothing. Then you and Simon go to the pier. A fishing boat will be waiting for you. Simon will know the driver. His name is Gil. Gil takes tourists out on fishing boats around the island. We want you seen leaving in a boat with Simon for a few days of fishing around the island. Gil will bring you to our village. Then my grandfather will take you to a place to lay low for a while." Louya stood to leave the room.

"Wait, why do I need to lay low?" Sam asked.

"The Tangans will be angry and will blame my family."

"Okay, but what's that got to do with me?"

"Nobody will notice if you are gone for a week. Everyone will think you went fishing and hiking in the mountains. A lot of tourists do this. But the Tangans work for Dixon. So we want you to be safe where we can protect you if anything goes wrong."

Sam stood, pulled back the drapes, stared out over the moonlit ocean for a moment, then turned and lifted Louya to her feet.

"Dave's going to --"

Louya pressed her finger to his lips. He was no knight, just another confused consultant helping someone he wanted to believe was a damsel in distress. He thought he could help without taking ownership of the results, just like any other consulting gig. But now, he was getting more involved than a typical consulting gig.

16.The Hideout.

Tuesday, 1998-02-17, 8 AM, NOUM

After Sam and Simon were on the boat and well on their way north, Gil took a call on his satellite phone. After the call, he told Sam the Tangans were looking for him and Louya. The Tangans would pay the police to look for them, and Savos would hear about this. Sam felt scared and humiliated for allowing himself to get involved.

"Simon, Dave will -" Sam whispered to Simon on the boat.

Simon held up his hand to signal Sam not to speak while Gil could overhear. Gil parked the boat at the village's pier, and Sam led Simon from the pier into a waiting white van that took them the short distance to the central grassy square of the village.

Louya was there to greet Sam and Simon as they left the van. A small group of young girls standing beside one of the huts were pointing and giggling at them.

"You're safe here. We can protect you. Are you hungry?" Louya asked.

"Starved," wondering what the young girls found so funny.

"I will feed you. I know you must be scared and angry right now. But we can't talk here. Follow me." Louya led him toward the Chief's house.

Chief Paw came out before they reached the house. Sam had not realized how much taller and thinner the Chief was than Sam. When they were close enough to Chief Paw for Sam to smell the familiar aroma of the stale pipe tobacco mixed with his acidic body odor, the Chief held up his hand, brushed his carefully coifed white beard, and glared down over his nose through those strange glasses first at Louya, then Sam, then Simon. He pulled a small black pipe from his pocket and thumped it into the palm of his hand until it was empty of ashes. Then he extended his empty pipe to point to Sam while he glared at Louya. At that moment, his glare seemed capable of grounding birds in flight.

"I told you, he did everything we asked! He saved me!" Louya said. Louya tapped Sam on the arm and pointed to the carton of Camels Simon had bought at the hotel, which Sam gave Chief Paw. Chief put his pipe back in his shirt pocket, patted Sam on the chest, and smiled.

"My grandfather likes you," Louya whispered to Sam.

"Ya, I got that."

Chief Paw opened a pack, tapped out one of the unfiltered cigarettes, and rolled it between his fingers as he smelled it. Satisfied, he put it in his mouth, pulled a pack of matches from his shirt pocket, lit it, and stared at the sky.

After a few deep draws like this, he turned to Louya and shook his finger. It was a finger of shame. For a moment, Sam felt angry.

"He's mad at you?" Sam asked Louya, unprepared for Paw's reaction, expecting gratitude for the results of his help.

"My grandfather does not want trouble with Tangans. He knows my bringing you here like this means trouble is coming."

Chief Paw waved for Sam to follow him through a growing crowd of older women who made a hole for him.

"Where's he going now?" Chief Paw had already disappeared around the corner, heading toward the back of the building area.

"You will see. Follow the Chief - quickly!"

So Sam hurried to catch up. Chief Paw was a short distance away, standing ramrod straight beside a pile of branches near the edge of a heavily wooded area, gazing at the mountains surrounding the valley. Chief Paw moved over to a nearby grove of trees and parted them to reveal a dirty-pink tireless Volkswagen bus set flush to the ground. Louya smiled and nodded as she understood Paw's plan.

"There are cars like this all over our land. My grandfather collects them."

Chief Paw pounded a finger on the fender and pointed at Sam. When Sam didn't understand, Chief Paw walked to the passenger door, opened it despite the creaking objections, and pointed at Sam to get in.

"Now we must hide," Louya said, growing more serious.

"In the car?"

"Under the car. There is a tunnel below the car. It will take you to our cave."

"Cave? Oh - no, no, No! Look, I'd love to explore your caves; I would. But, no! I have a job! Look at me. I don't do caves."

"Ko!" Paw said to Louya. Sam bent down to look inside the car and pulled up the back seat. From where Sam stood, he could see that the front seats, stick shift, steering wheel, and rearview mirror were all missing. When Sam was a teenager, the Volkswagon was his favorite car. He stepped in closer to look where Paw was pointing.

"My grandfather says your ko is down there."

"My what?"

"Your - spirit - your ko."

"Prayani," Paw said as he stepped toward Sam and handed him a small round stone no bigger than a walnut. When Sam accepted the gift, Paw began speaking to Louya.

"My grandfather saw you coming in a dream." Louya stopped and listened, then continued.

"My sister Moura told Paw in his dream that she would guide you here. My mother named my sister after Moura, the great goddess of the mountains. The stone allows our ancestors to protect the one who carries it, and now the great goddess Moura wants you to have it. Your journey is our journey now." Louya paused to reflect Paw's smile, who was smiling at Sam.

Sam hesitated after seeing the root-infested ladder below the car.

"So I'm not kidnapped?" Sam told Louya and Simon.

"No," Simon said. "Sam, I am sorry we had to this this way. We needed to get you out of your world so you can journey within. If we did not, you would not make it another year. That is what is important. Let us handle the rest."

Louya's enemies were his enemies now, and he could only imagine the story they had cooked up around all this. There was no time to be angry with himself. Sam gazed past the green niaouli tree patches covering red dirt mounds across the grassy plain to the ocean in the distance - another beautiful day in paradise, he thought.

"No ko, no good. Louya, you show him." Chief Paw said in English, and Sam remembered Simon saying something about descendants of gods living among real people all over the island.

Grandmother arrived and handed Sam a first aid kit and a gallon water jug. She handed Louya a bag of food.

"Grandmother was a nurse. She wants you to lose weight."

Sam did not understand everything happening here, but he was clear there was no turning back. Then Sam looked at Louya, saw the pillar of light energy extending around her heart, and knew his choice was clear.

"Sam. Tangans run everything. We must hurry," Louya interrupted. "They will be here soon. Come."

17.Dixon.

Tuesday, 1998-02-17, 6 AM, near HIENGHENE

The tunnel at the ladder's base was large enough for Sam to move through on his stomach but left no room to rise into a crawl. So, he had to slither through the mud and wet roots, with only the sound of Louya's movements a short distance ahead to guide him.

Was he dreaming again? He bit his tongue, felt some pain, and knew this was real. He could feel the island drawing him to her.

"You wait here," Louya whispered after what felt like hours but was probably only ten minutes crawling through the tight tunnel. Sam was panting and needed rest, and Louya had been bossing him around like a dog again.

"Why are we whispering?"

With the help of the dim light spreading from a narrow crack off to their right, he could see they were in a space about the size of an oversized couch.

"There are people on the other side of this stone. Many friends of the Tangans come there -- this is the office of their leader. We must not let them find you here. If you need to go outside, that tunnel leads up to the beach, but we must be careful. I will be back soon."

After an hour or more, Sam heard a muffled conversation off to their right. Sam drew near enough to the crack of fluorescent light now shining through at least six inches of solid rock to see down into the adjacent cavern without being seen or heard, yet still able to hear the voices more clearly.

Someone had converted the cavern into an office decorated with rust, red, and orange French trimmings, marble sculptures of naked men and women, and expensive French renaissance paintings, yet lit by a blazing fluorescence and smelling of warm, stale cigar smoke. A man was seated in a wheelchair on a raised platform, surrounded by various computer monitors juxtaposed among set pieces from an art collection. Wires spread throughout, around, and under the desks, and a cement ramp winding down to the cavern floor.

At first, Sam thought the man resembled his younger brother, but he wasn't sure, and it seemed unlikely. Then, Sam vaguely remembered Dixon's last words to him: something about cashing out and moving to some island in the South Pacific where it never snowed, the women still wanted to serve the men, and "none of you will ever find me."

Sam tried to look closer but could only see the man's back while he worked. He hadn't seen Dixon since the accident over three years ago. At that time, Dixon weighed at least as much as him, if not more. This man Sam was looking at weighed only half that and had grown his light-brown, graying hair long enough to pull back into a ponytail.

Then the man placed a foot-long bamboo tube in his mouth, pointed it to his left at a dartboard hanging on the red mahogany bathroom door, and exhaled to propel a small dart into the bullseye. It couldn't be. Sam pulled away. Only one man could do that - was it possible? They'd played this game together as boys, and Dixon always won. Had fate now brought him to Dixon?

His heart pounded, and his mind screamed, "I don't believe this!" Simon wanted him to see this. But why?

Sam remembered how envious he'd been of his younger brother. Dixon had always been better-looking, smarter, and more popular. Their Dad would point to Dixon as the role model Sam should emulate. But what Sam saw now was a wealthy, disabled man living in a cave on an island in the Pacific, just like he'd always wanted. The question was, why this island and this cave?

"Nice." Sam heard a husky woman's voice before he could see her. When he finally saw her, he recognized Shelby, the woman he'd seen helping Amy leave him. Every time Shelby stooped over one of Dixon's computer screens, a small wing of hair fell over her eye, only to be scooped back over her ear as if unintentional.

"Never know when this could come in handy." Dixon opened a drawer and dropped the bamboo tube inside. His eyes swam overtly over the length of her athletic legs.

"The bank set up the Deforest end." Shelby pointed to the screen, and Dixon wheeled over.

"And they already paid half to CDU for the project. Looks like they have a budget for Sam to be here until the new infrastructure is installed -- through the next quarter." Sam's stomach froze at the sound of his name. Dixon's eyes were glued to the screen for a moment before he pulled back, clearly shaken.

"Sam's too close," Dixon muttered. Dixon had no idea.

"So this is about Amy?"

"Don't worry. I know how to get Amy to cooperate, as long as she doesn't listen to the old tub."

"What's the big deal about him? He's just a technical guy. You can talk circles around anything he puts in her head; she doesn't even love him. Why do you have to make this personal?" Shelby stood high over Dixon and wrinkled her brow, but Dixon only stared at the screen before him.

"It's only a matter of time before he finds out about Lifetimes of Pleasure and our experiments. All it takes is for a few nervous nellies on the board of CDU to hear his version, and they might drop their support for my takeover bid. We must start moving everything underground, discredit Sam, and look for new investors."

1. 1. 1. 4. ======

Dixon had grown more powerful than Sam had ever imagined he might become. And more sociopathic. Nobody ever accused him of being stupid. Unscrupulous, but not stupid. Even growing up, there didn't seem to be anything Sam did that Dixon couldn't outwit. Sam felt the old anger and envy rise from his stomach to fill his mind.

"Sam is a fool...." Dixon shook his head. "You know, in high school, he panicked when this girl told him she was pregnant with his child. He blamed her for the whole thing - called her a tramp -- wouldn't give an inch. So the girl came to me. At first, she asked me for money to take care of it. In return, she promised me - favors. I told her I wanted proof before I would give her a dime. It turned out she wasn't pregnant after all! But I never told Sam that. I told him I'd handled it. So he felt guilty, and I had a lifetime of leverage -- what a schmuck!"

Sam froze. The memory of Betsy had never left him. Sam hadn't known that Dixon was helping her. He only guessed that Betsy had played him for a fool. Sam could still see her face when she'd told him she was pregnant. He knew even then that she didn't want the baby, but Dixon was right - he never knew that she lied.

"So now," Dixon mansplained, "Amy's got him thinking she's here to care for her mother. He'll go crazy if he finds out she's giving that fetus to me and why."

1. 1. 1. 5. ======

Sam pulled away from listening to make sense of Amy's betrayal. He remembered the first day Amy came to meet the family. Dixon had fallen over himself trying to steal her away from him, offering her a job, sending flowers for no reason, and even sending a messenger service to sing her a country song Dixon had written about her. And when that didn't work, he'd still coveted her, even trying to stop the wedding.

Sam felt his anger rising as he realized what his parents had created in Dixon, what Dixon was planning, and how blind he'd been to Amy and Dixon's secret relationship.

1. 1. 1. 6. ======

Dixon was mansplaining again. Sam groaned quietly at the torture but returned to listening.

"There are too many reasons for him to destroy everything I've built here. We must stop him - we must find a way to discredit him. Start with Deforest. Knowing Sam, he's pissed somebody off by now."

"He scares you?"

Dixon pulled back his wheelchair and grinned as he rolled it straight toward Shelby, forcing her to stumble out of his way.

"Hey!" she screamed.

"My dear, simple Shelby - Sam has been talking to Simon," He picked up a pen and started chewing on the end of it.

"Is that a problem?"

"It's not good. Simon is no friend of mine. He's probably put Sam under one of his spells." Dixon rolled his wheelchair to a terminal and typed something on the keyboard.

"Then why do the abortion at all?"

Dixon shook the arms of his wheelchair in a burst of anger. "Don't you get it? That fetus is an excellent genetic match for me! I must have it, or I die in this goddamned chair!." He turned the wheelchair back to watch Shelby as she headed for the door.

"When DuPrie gets here, go over everything again. See that he has everything he needs. And check our security. Whatever he knows, I want to know. Right away. Understood? I want him doing that operation the moment Amy arrives."

"You can tell him yourself," Shelby crossed behind him and began walking down the ramp. "He's right outside. And don't worry about security. Nobody suspects a thing. You've spent more on security for this one project than you've ever spent on anything in your life. We're OK," Shelby said, walking down the ramp to leave.

"Your ignorance is your weakness. Double security," Dixon said as he tapped on his keyboard. "Our toys arrive tomorrow, and we don't want anybody around when Santa comes down the chimney." He pulled out the bamboo pipe again.

"If everyone does their job, I'll be out of this goddamned wheelchair and firing aces at you across the tennis court within three years. So get Sam out of the way. I don't care how you do it. Just do it. No screwups. You understand?" He loaded a small dart into its barrel and put the pipe end to his mouth.

Shelby stopped at the door and turned around to glare at him.

"Don't even think about it, Dixon."

Sam could see the blood rise into Dixon's pasty cheeks as he recoiled and set the pipe down.

"I swear, when are you ever gonna grow up?" she asked.

"Just remember whom you owe."

"My first mistake."

18.Dr. DuPrie.

Tuesday, 1998-02-17, 9 AM, near HIENGHENE

"You can come in now, Doctor."

Shelby pushed through the double doors to Dixon's office to present a small, dark-haired man with a pale complexion and a protruding belly. His greasy, unkept appearance seemed made for the jarring eclectics of the juxtaposed computer equipment, French trimmings, and objet d'art.

Sam crawled again until he could see Dixon. His brother looked thinner, and there were shadows around his eyes Sam didn't remember ever seeing before. Life in a wheelchair hadn't done him much good.

The man wobbled past marble statues and through the carpeted aisle bordered by piece de resistance couches to sit in the single overstuffed, burgundy chair below and facing Dixon's platform, seemingly designed for victims to experience pleasure while being dominated.

"We are honored to host you at Lifetimes of Pleasure, Dr. DuPrie. I've long admired your research into aging..."

"Wild rumors, sir. We have only shown the merest things - oxidation levels of proteins bonded to metalloenzymes increase with age. Our interest is in reversing these oxidation levels to show --"

"I'm sure you're right, Dr. DuPrie. And I have great confidence you will show the world much more. So I will not take up much of your time now." DuPrie seemed to relax and began gazing around at the bibelot, even appearing to stare at the crack through which Sam was watching him. Sam pulled back quickly to remain unseen, his curiosity piqued by the mysterious conversation.

"DuPrie, I need your opinion on something we're working on here. Have you ever heard of Santalaceae?" Dixon's eyes narrowed as a glint of excitement appeared in his gaze. Sam had seen that look a thousand times when they were growing up. Dixon was about to pounce. Sam had always secretly envied Dixon's ability to manipulate people.

"Not much...." DuPrie's voice faded as the man dropped his head and ran his hand through the tuft of hair on the left side of his otherwise balding head. Dixon leaned back in his wheelchair and examined his fingernails. "Doctor, do you realize what you've got here? You've found a way to change the face of the human aging process forever."

"I don't quite follow."

"Jean-Pierre, may I call you Jean-Pierre?" Dr. DuPrie nodded. "Good. Jean-Pierre, we have reason to believe that what you've discovered is connected to the Dixonel showing up in the sandalwood trees around here."

Dr. Jean-Pierre DuPrie froze as he considered Dixon's words, then slumped his hands between his bulging stomach and restrictive belt.

"I'm sorry - Dixonel?"

"Named after me." Dixon's voice faded into the buzz from his wheelchair as he wheeled down the curved white stone ramp beside his raised platform toward DuPrie. When he arrived, he popped a large cigar into his mouth.

"Imagine you're old and rich. And you don't like it one bit. Now you hire me to -- change the rules a bit."

"...Folklore! Results are inconclusive, inconsistent, and even dangerous!" Dr. DuPrie's lips were twitching. "We at ORSTOM do a fair and open-minded job of choosing the widest possible range of research subjects. We do not spend time on crazy science. Our goal is to improve the quality of life. Why must you Americans be so enamored with trivial Hollywood manipulations?"

"I expected nothing less than your frank opinion, Doctor. It's precisely the reason I brought you here. But I need to tell you, we are changing nature. We do it every day. And we get paid a lot for what we do. Customers want what we sell, and it's their dime!"

Dixon pressed a button on his wheelchair, and a narrow gas flame shot straight up from one of the arms. He leaned his cigar over the flame and inhaled until it lit, then shut off the flame and leaned back to puff until smoke swirled around DuPrie.

Sam turned away in disgust. Dixon had that trademark, me-first smirk on his face again. Whenever he shot that cocky, gloating look at Sam, Sam's reaction was almost chemical - combustion was inevitable. His brother was lying about something nobody would bother to disprove. Again. He was sure that whatever Dixon was planning included using Sam as the scapegoat because that was how the rivalry was between them.

Sam felt drawn into the old waves of anger around Dixon. He wanted to leave this place, bury that anger, and dissociate from it so Dixon couldn't hurt him or anyone else he cared about. He'd already spent enough time in his life "handling Dixon."

"I started in research, just like you, Doctor. And research is all right -- for a while. And I was good at it. But when I made my first sale to a lawyer," Dixon went on, loud enough for his voice to echo around the room, "well, there's nothing like the rush of closing a deal." The prospect of listening to Dixon recounting his victories was depressing. Sam turned away and sat down against the wall.

".. and then when I sold my first copy of a large insurance company's mailing lists, it was like pumping oil from a well - the customer was ecstatic when I gave him the disks."

============

Sam could feel the blood rush to the tips of his ears. He remembered those disks. He'd been alone in the copier room at that large insurance company when a young, sexy, blonde woman sidled in beside him, posed her deep cleavage before him, and poured out, "Sam Hale, just the expert I've been looking for."

The woman had been close enough for him to smell her perfume's sharp, acidic edge, see the glint from her massive diamond, and feel her hard nipples brushing against his arm. She said she worked for Deforest and needed the disks. Sam was a consultant and had no reason to disbelieve her. So he'd given her a copy. Sam was young, and it was a stupid mistake. He still regretted it, which made it worse when he heard that his brother had taken advantage of his mistake.

=========

The voices of the two men had faded again, but Sam knew Dixon and knew Dixon was baiting the hook. He waited and watched. It wasn't long before Jean-Pierre's head twitched. DuPrie pulled on his short, pointed beard as if this might stabilize his head. Then, his left hand partially disappeared inside the top of his pants.

"It's not too late, Doctor. ORSTOM had their chance. Now, I am offering you a choice. Work for me. Exclusively. We both know you'll do it because you're not a good guy - are you, Jean-Pierre?"

Jean-Pierre coughed, which then escalated into an elaborate event. It began with a series of hacks, deep and bilious from the depths of otherwise unexercised organs, followed shortly by a wheezing gasp and finishing with a few more minor coughs. Then, after clearing his throat, he said, "I'm listening," without apology.

Dixon was deliberate in his motions, slowly turning his wheelchair to place his cigar into an overworked ashtray attached to his wheelchair. Dixon had evolved his act. He almost seemed capable of gathering the fluorescent light above him and projecting it onto his prey through those clear, insistent hazel eyes.

"I know what you've been up to, DuPrie. And I get it! You want to make a lot of money by passing confidential information to Krupf, right?"

DuPrie's back stiffened at the mention of Krupf. "Of course, were this widely known in the scientific community, that would end your career as a researcher, wouldn't it? Think of all the work you've authored. And then there's your thesis." Dixon circled his wheelchair back and forth. "Who will hire an untrustworthy, disloyal scientist who might sell their secrets?"

"Where did you hear this?" DuPrie was sitting in his chair, eyes bright and indignant, every reserve called to action. A few beads of sweat glistened on top of his balding head.

Dixon rolled back to his desk, shuffled through some papers, found a single sheet, searched it with his finger, and announced: "You described the Deforest refining process to Krupf, their biggest international competitor, for -- $500 thousand US Dollars? $500K? Look, I don't care if you sold this information, but is that all you intend to make on these deals?"

Dixon continued the assault. "Then we have your divorce and child support payments - "Sam heard Dixon type something on his keyboard. "Ah... $24000 a month?"

"How do you know these things?"

Eventually, DuPrie would see resistance was hopeless and surrender.

"Jean-Pierre, if I can find out what you're doing, eventually the authorities will too. Did you know that the information you're giving Krupf is helping them build chemical and biological weapons components in Germany and France to resell to Iran, North Korea, and maybe even China? So, I will ask you again: is the risk you're taking to your reputation worth only half a million dollars? No matter how you look at it, DuPrie, you're what we Americans call a chump."

"I am not a chump, sir!" DuPrie stared at the desk in front of him. Sam could barely hear him, but Dixon laughed, a brief falsetto that subsided to a high tenor before ending.

"Then you must be doing it for the thrill - like some people drink, gamble, or take drugs. Only you steal other people's data, then practically give it away."

DuPrie did not answer. Sam thought he heard the flick of a cigarette lighter, so he moved up to get a better look, sharpening his attention.

"But you see, I like that! I'm your best friend right now. And I want to hire the real you. I need someone like you to set an example for my people." Dixon had developed a mean streak.

Jean-Pierre paused and looked toward the wall as if he sensed Sam was watching. Sam sucked in his breath and pulled away from the crack and waited.

It was not long before Sam saw a finger poke through the crack, then withdrew after the probe felt only a deep layer of solid rock separating the cavern from where Sam held his breath, hoping discovery was not upon him.

"You have me trapped in some cave! Yesterday, I was at the peak of my career. You have me at a most incommodious moment, I'm afraid. I believe the next move is yours, Mr. Extortionist."

"Good. My proposal is this. You come to work for me, and I blur the trail of your piracy. For your acceptance of this offer, I will pay you a half million annually plus a pension, child support, and all your travel and expenses."

DuPrie paused only for a moment. "As I said, you have caught me at the right moment. But may I ask what you expect for this money?"

"First, I must have your assurances that we have a deal. Then I have a little operation I want you to perform. Nothing you haven't done before, I'm sure." Sam peeked through the crack again to see Dixon peer above the paper. His eyes locked onto Dr. Jean-Pierre DuPrie.

"We need a fetus. Get that, and you have the job and my word that I will make all this go away forever." DuPrie's demeanor shifted almost instantly from defiance to resignation.

"What do you plan to do with the fetus?"

"Do you agree to these terms?"

"I agree to your terms."

"Cheer up! I guarantee that you're about to discover yourself!"

Dixon's guarantee ripped through Sam's mind like church bells awakening a dead soul. The guarantee was the one their father gave whenever he wanted them to do a chore he knew they didn't want to do.

"There are no guarantees in life," Dr. DuPrie flailed.

Dixon had turned the wheelchair back to face DuPrie, leaning back before drawing deeply on his cigar.

"Then remember this. As easily as I can blur the trails of your theft, I can remake them." Dixon's tone was more menacing now.

"I can create a nightmare so bad for you that losing the favor of your peers will seem like a good day. I have records that go back to your cheating on tests in high school. I have statements from the people who sold you papers in college. I have photographs of you bribing an English professor in college. I even have pictures of the young women, your students. Not many people know about the girls, do they? Do I have to send the pictures?"

"No."

Oddly empathetic with the corrupt DuPrie's defeat, Sam fell back to the ground. All too well, he remembered the countless times Dixon and he had suffered similar humiliations under the scalpel of their father's cold, analytical, controlling mind.

Dixon had learned emotional and psychological abuse at the feet of a master.

19.Brothers.

Tuesday, 1998-02-17, 11 AM, near HIENGHENE

Dixon had been gone awhile from his office, and Sam had dozed off, glad for the unbroken silence without Dixon speaking.

But his dozing was overtaken by a vision through the eyes of a man at work in a different office at a different time in history, urgently finishing a task. Having a vision embodying another person's perspective was new, especially when that person was running on adrenalin.

The man worked in an old library or office, surrounded by two-story walls filled with brownish books. The large wood desk before him was the size of a modern ping-pong table. Yellowing papers were strewn all around the table. Sunlight streamed in through a two-story high window framed by reddish-brown drapes. On the desk to his left was a manuscript titled "The Last Will and Testament of Karl Lanquester, 1790," written in French, which, for some reason, Sam could read.

"Karl, you must hurry! We are all waiting in the carriage! The Prussians have entered Paris!" a woman shouted frantically before entering, out of breath after climbing stairs to enter through a door to Karl's left. Sam understood the French language the woman was speaking for some reason.

When Karl looked up from his work and in her direction, Sam/Karl saw an attractive middle-aged woman. Based on her ornate dress and jewelry, she was also someone of means and high station.

"Cecelia, my love, I am almost finished." Karl quickly returned to peering through a magnifying glass at a twelve-diamond cluster platinum ring with an enormous blue sapphire at its center. Karl bent the last prong over the sapphire as he raced to finish.

Sam read the drawing annotation: eight-carat blue sapphire.

"You said that the last two times I asked!" Cecelia complained.

"And there it is, done. I finished Wilma's ring. This one is for Hamel. I have written it all down here," he pointed to his Will. "I wanted to keep their inheritances together in platinum rings so we don't lose them at sea. But they cannot wear them. We must keep them hidden."

"Very sensible of you, Karl. Now let's go! We are all waiting for you in the carriage."

1. 1. 1. 7. ======

The sound of a door swinging open in the adjacent cavern woke Sam from dozing. Dixon had been gone for a while, and the office area had been dark and silent.

Louya crawled over to take a look this time.

"Put her over here." Dixon's voice was sharp and tense.

"Oh no!" Louya hissed, covering her mouth with her hand. Sam caught her as she flopped to the cavern floor, shuddering but out of sight.

"What is it?"

"My brother."

Sam stood again to look through the crack; his breath stopped short this time. Two men, burly bouncers - one was the Popeye muscled guard from the bank - were steering Luther and a young woman into Dixon's pit. The young woman had long, stringy, dirty brown hair covering her face and clutched the torn remains of a red dress to her bare white chest. There was no mistaking that slouch, the hair, and how her eyes bulged from deep eye sockets behind the hair.

It was Amy. She sat on the same chair where Dixon had emasculated Dr. DuPrie only hours ago.

"Keep the Doctor happy, I said." Dixon looked at Amy.

"Don't let him go too far, I said!" Dixon shouted at Luther.

"That was all! But you couldn't do that one simple thing, could you?"

"No, I mean yes, I mean ---" While Luther stammered, Amy pulled her knees to her gaunt face. She curled herself into a tight ball by wrapping her mud-smeared arms around the millions of shivering bits of herself, twitching in defiance. Her gaze riveted on a spot on the burgundy carpet.

"Oh, Luther..." Louya whispered. Sam felt my stomach clenching angrily, fingers clutching the thick stone wall.

"Enough!" A vein bulged from the side of Dixon's forehead. Sam watched intently, wondering if this might be one of those rare moments when Dixon would lose a bit of that infamous cool.

"Luther, go. I'll deal with you later." The two men left with Luther.

"Amy, I am truly sorry this happened - it won't happen again." Dixon had rolled down and glared at the door.

Amy shifted her knees, glared at Dixon when he started to roll closer to her, then turned her back and adjusted her dress to cover most of her muddied skin.

"Shelby, bring Amy some water. And a warm blanket. And see if you can find something warm for her to wear."

"Nobody is going to hurt you anymore, Amy. You're safe here," Dixon said.

Shelby thrust a glass of water into Amy's hand, threw the blanket onto her lap, and then stopped to glare at Dixon.

"Thank you, Shelby - that'll be all." Shelby bent over and whispered something to Amy, then left before Amy could respond.

"Don't pay attention to Shelby," Dixon said after the men had closed the door behind her. She's just a little jealous, that's all."

Amy clutched the blanket around her and tried to cover her head.

"Trust me; you're with the better brother now, Amy."

Dixon pulled his wheelchair in beside Amy. "Did you know that I found this island with you in mind? You want to dance again, right? I can help. Anything you want. I got you that private audition with the Joffrey in Chicago, right?"

The blanket fell away from Amy's head as she turned to look at Dixon. She'd stopped shivering.

"I told you, I never say never, Amy."

Amy returned to staring at the carpet. "Sam will never change."

"Okay, except for that. And good for you! I told you it was a mistake to marry Sam, right? Now you're starting to see things as they are! He'd make a lousy father."

Sam dropped his chin, but Louya was shaking her head and angry. She patted her hand over his heart. Finally, Sam shrugged -- Dixon was only confirming Sam's self-loathing beliefs.

Dixon reached out to hold Amy's hand, but she refused him.

"You're still not sure about doing this, are you?" Dixon recoiled his outstretched arm. "Maybe a week in a private room overlooking the ocean will help. Jacuzzi? Fully stocked kitchen? Cool silk sheets? And this time, I promise you won't be interrupted unless you want to be. How does all that sound?"

Amy turned her gaze to Dixon. "I just wish none of this had ever happened," she said, her eyes filling with tears.

"So do I. So do I." This time, she did not retreat when he patted his hand on her arm.

"But it did happen, Amy, and you need to put all that in the past and move beyond it. So, I want you to imagine the day you're starring in a Joffrey ballet, living in a penthouse apartment, and being treated like royalty. Isn't it about time Amy did something for Amy?" Dixon punched a button on his wheelchair. She didn't move, but she wasn't shivering or twitching either.

"Shelby, bring Grace in here."

Dixon's bodyguards swung the large doors open for Shelby and Grace.

"What have you done to her?" Grace was angry.

"Nothing. Amy is safe and sound, as we agreed. One of my people got carried away, but we've handled it. I assure you this will never happen again."

"Why haven't you cleaned her up?"

"I will leave that to you, Grace." Dixon pulled his wheelchair away from them both. Grace threw her arms around Amy, who began sobbing into her chest. Grace looked back at Dixon, tears in her eyes.

"This didn't have to happen, Dixon."

"No, it didn't. Amy was under my protection, but someone made a mistake, and he will never make that mistake again. Shelby will make sure Amy has whatever she needs."

"I'm sure there isn't anything you couldn't buy for Amy. Except for my love," Grace's voice quivered.

Amy reached out and took Grace's hand.

1. 1. 1. 9. ======

It was over an hour before Louya returned with the food promised by Grandmother. Dixon had taken Amy and Grace from the office and shut off the fluorescent lights, leaving Sam with only the dim lighting from some computer equipment to light the cavern. Sam had dozed off.

"Shhhh." Louya placed her finger to Sam's lips, grinned, dragged the sack over, and opened it.

"I'm starving!" he whispered as he glanced at his watch--five o'clock.

"My Grandfather says we must leave." She handed him a wine bottle and a corkscrew. He found bread and fruit in the faint light.

"We need to see Simon. The Tangans are angry, and the police are looking for you. Simon will know what you should do."

"You knew it was my brother with the office behind that wall, didn't you?" Sam peeled away the bottle's prophylactic and dug the screw into the cork.

"Shhh. Yes. All my family knows."

"I'm nothing like him," Sam said, pulling the cork from the bottle.

"Not at all! We believe you will help us. We never believed Dixon would. You are angry?" She offered Sam two clear plastic cups. Sam filled them and set the bottle aside.

"Not with you. I'm depressed and angry with Dixon. He hasn't changed. He still has our mother's need for character assassination and our father's need to control everything."

Sam tipped the glass toward her. "To assholes."

"To love, peace, and happiness," she said with certainty as she met his cup.

"It's just that I never thought I'd see him again. Three years ago, he had the accident on my wedding day that put him in that wheelchair."

"Accident?"

"He dove into the pool at the reception. He was drunk. Cocky bastard dove headfirst into the shallow end. Snapped his neck."

"Oh, my God! How awful!"

"Yeah. Dixon is lucky to be alive. I was in the pool before I could think about it. I fished him out, but then some medical people took over, and I couldn't get near him again. The last time I saw him, he was flat inside an ambulance and shouting at my mother that he didn't want to see any of us ever again."

"I am sorry, but we did not know if you were with your brother or against him. Grandfather needed to know if he could trust you before he helped you."

"Did I pass?"

"Depends. Are you with your brother?"

"With Dixon? Not ever." Sam took a large bite from the loaf of bread and chewed until he could talk.

"After he left us that last time, my mother took it pretty hard. Even when he'd done something awful in the past that shocked her, she still loved and accepted him and was hurt knowing Dixon would never dance with her again."

"You sound jealous."

"Of him? Sometimes, I fail to get that dance because I try doing things his way."

"So you want what he wants until you find out what he does to get what he wants is not what you would do, and then you don't want the same thing so much anymore."

"Something like that, yeah."

"Then he saves you."

"Maybe so. There's no in-between with Dixon. He couldn't care less what happened to me. We haven't even spoken since the accident."

Louya sat down in the long shadow cast by the background lighting from Dixon's office spreading around the edges of the stone, leaned back, and shuddered. "I haven't been here since I was little. It still scares me."

Sam's eyes were adjusting to the darkness. He couldn't see Louya clearly, but her tone was gentle and even. He wanted to trust her, to believe he was in a safe hiding place with her, and to believe she was looking out for his best interests.

"Why does it scare you?"

"We're in the Montanya region."

"Is that bad?"

"Not for you. You are safe here. The Tangans have yet to learn about our tunnels. But for me -- this is where Moura died."

"Moura? She died back in Chicago."

"No, a different Moura. Every generation has a Moura. This Moura was the ancestor and guide for my sister."

"So, is this some burial ground? Is that why you're scared?"

Louya pointed back into the dark recess, where he'd heard the rustling sounds.

"We say: 'Bats are ancestors with wings.'"

Sam sat back against the cold stone in the cold cavern. Every breath became a conscious effort to warm the moist air chilling the back of his throat.

"Dixon once told me his will says he wants cremation, no services, flush the ashes down the toilet, no eulogies, no grief, a short passing."

"Dixon sounds like he has always been unhappy," Louya whispered.

"Dixon believes life is all a game and that to win, you must be well-prepared, well-positioned, and lie to avoid letting feelings get in your way."

"Stupid, clever man. He does not know anything."

"There was a time when I thought he was right, and maybe I had the stuff to conquer the world."

"Is that what you want - to conquer the world?"

"No. Not really. I never did."

"Sam, your soul has always known better. Dixon is the jealous one."

20.Surrender

Tuesday, 1998-02-17, 2 PM, near HIENGHENE

For over two hours, Sam had sat beside the stillness of Dixon's office, dreading exposure of another Dixon plot and dwelling on how angry he was with Amy. He was beginning to understand what had happened a few months ago.

Amy had dominated him in bed that night she got pregnant, her laughter intent on mocking their marriage, flaunting her defiance through sex. She'd come out of the bathroom naked -- he could still see her long white shaved and muscular legs, earring above and tattoo below her navel, pointed pale face, and strange eight-ball eyes in the flickering candlelight.

There was some brief foreplay before she mounted him. It was not long before she was shouting, "Now! Yes! Yes!" and ending with a scream that felt unhinged, aching, like a cold-blooded wail as if falling into the gates of hell as she orgasmed. And then she was done.

"You see? All I do is give you what all men want. There's nothing I can do to make you happy. Is there." It was not a question. Amy spat the words out as she bounced from the bed, flung open the bedroom door, and pointed her finger for him to sleep on the couch.

He understood now since they had not slept together before or after that one time. That must have been the time that got Amy pregnant and ended their marriage.

1. 1. 1. 10. ======

The cave felt like a buried coffin as he waited for his worst enemies to discover him.

"I can't just sit here waiting to be discovered, just listening to Dixon!" he whispered to Louya. "The office is empty. I need to get out of here. Let's go now while nobody can hear us."

"Okay. We cannot leave the same way we came here. The police are still searching the village. But I know a place. It's by the beach where we can hide. Follow me."

When they exited the cave, he could barely keep Louya in sight through the wind and thick fog surrounding them. He knew they were near the edge of a cliff. His heart was banging in his chest, and he felt as if he were wading through molasses, unable to see the path under him.

"We're lost," Sam shouted to Louya over the wind.

"Stay close. This way."

Sam might have plunged to the ocean far below were it not for the sound of Louya's voice challenging the thick fog and howl of a rising storm with an almost detached clarity.

And then, even the effect of her voice disappeared into the fog.

"Louya!" He shouted her name as loud as he dared, but she did not return his call. Had she already fallen into the ocean? Was he following her now to the same fate?

"I can't see!" He yelled, hoping she might hear. He felt around as he stumbled forward. Unknown objects slapped him like unleashed brass clappers, arousing a bell, demanding review. He didn't know if he could believe what he saw.

A soft brush against something resembling a lily became the soft wool sweater of his first girlfriend. She dumped him for someone more willing to defend her.

Old ghosts circled him. Warped faces, triangular mouths, large dark, cold eyes all staring at him and laughing - the smallest kid, taped-together glasses, frail body, and endless bungling.

A tree of branches without leaves appeared to split into a fork from its base. One-half of the tree became the bully at the back of the bus who'd provoked his first angry blow.

His internal compass was out of control. The foggy air spun around him as if driven by a prophecy, preparing to whisk him into infinite nothingness.

1. 1. 1. 11. ======

"Why do you hesitate?" Simon stood beside him, calm, reposed, and smiling. His long hair blew around his head but never landed on his face as if Simon had harnessed the rising wind for this purpose.

"Where did you come from?" Sam panted.

"I am your guide."

"And I'm lost. So glad we cleared that up!"

"Why do you hesitate?" Simon asked.

"Oh, I don't know. My wife was cheating on me with my brother, maybe from the beginning of our marriage. Louya ran off and left me alone in a foreign country. I'm lost and confused in a fog filled with bad memories. Somewhere around here is a cliff that I might fall off and die. You pick."

"You are not lost. These images are memories that brought you pain. But they also were your teachers. They do not wish to confuse you now. Can you remember how you overcame them?"

"There are too many of them -- too much pain. I was too afraid to play along with the boys. Then, I was too proud to tell them I needed them as friends. I screwed up everything."

"You see only the pain--a waste of time. You cannot change these memories, but you can use them. Remember the bad habits you changed because of them."

"Look, unless you know the way out of here, why don't you find somebody else to teach? I'm just not up to this right now."

"Fine. When you are ready to leave, say my name."

"Wait.... ... all right. Can you get me out of here?"

"Are you asking for my help?"

"Yes."

"Very good, you are learning! And the help is that you do not need my help with this. You have the way in your heart. All you need to do is listen. If you do this, I can help you destroy the effects of these memories forever and set you free to light the way ahead."

"What... are you talking about?" Everywhere Sam turned was unfinished business. There was no escape - unfinished business had followed him halfway around the world! Wherever he went, there he was - unfinished.

He wanted to move forward, but a forked tree blocked the path. Charlie, his childhood bully from the back of the bus, was still there, hanging with his friends and thinking of new ways to taunt him.

Charlie was only the first bully in his life. There had been many, many Charlies since then. The first Charlie had gone on to become a commodities trader. Tall, blonde, pointy hair with a racy-looking, brunette wife, no children, living in some high-rent district in Boston, and still intimidating his customers into following him, belittling them when they wanted out.

"How do I love the memory of an old nemesis?" Sam asked.

Simon sighed. "Focus. I cannot help you until you take the first step."

The memories were old and a burden. Sam had grown tired of carrying them. He wanted them gone forever. They'd denied him joy for too long.

Something snapped inside him like someone had cracked his back and realigned it to a new course. He would begin choosing - starting now. He was better than Charlie, his mother, father, or brother had allowed him to be. He wanted to move beyond this fog they had left behind.

He squinted at the tall, forked tree and remembered that this was where he buried all his most painful memories. The tree marked a safe place in his mind, protected by forces more powerful than a thousand Charlies, more potent than his mother's shaming, and stronger than his father's humiliations.

Feelings from the painful memories buried here roiled for reasons he did not understand. They seemed intent on overwhelming him with a fog so he would not remember what happened. He felt desperate and helpless.

Suddenly, he could see that there might be enough room to squeeze between the forked tree and a grove of young trees if he crawled. Sam dropped to his knees and felt a cold, wet, mossy cushion under his hands, a woody aroma around him, and wind rushing over him. He felt hopeful - there was a way out.

"It's working!" he whispered as he crawled past the forked tree and circle of ghosts until he reached the edge of a high cliff.

"You must follow her," Simon was standing beside him again. Louya was down there somewhere. If he followed, he might break his neck. Nothing he'd done before had ever prepared him for this.

"You've got to be crazy to think I can do this. Look at me! I'm no athlete." He'd dodged sports, avoided gyms, and even ignored careers that required physical confidence. "I'll break my neck. I can't."

"No, can't!" Simon spoke in a whisper. "Only will!" Simon stabbed a finger at the point on his forehead between his eyebrows.

"I believe in you, Sam. But I can only help you if you ask with your heart."

Sam looked down toward where Louya had disappeared into the sound of the ocean. He saw the image of his body strewn across rocks at the bottom of this cloud.

"I can't. You know I can't. I'm not ready."

"Then you will be here forever, and she will be down there forever."

"Forever?"

"Your soul will remain here until you are grateful for painful memories. Do you wish to continue crawling in the mud forever, nervously flickering like a dying light bulb?"

"No. I don't want to stay here forever."

"Then close your eyes, breathe, surrender to the ocean of all wisdom. Put your faith in God, who loves you despite all your self-loathing and painful memories, who has been there all along, never leaving or rejecting you, always loving and ready to help you."

Sam closed his eyes and felt a force lift him under his arms, dropping him off the cliff. The sensation of sailing through the air was at once frightening and liberating.

"Keep your eyes closed," he heard Simon instruct.

Sam kept his eyes closed but screamed into the ocean air.

"Concentrate on all that is good," he heard Simon's voice beyond his screaming.

Whatever force held him up, like giant large hands, gently laid him in the warm sand. He lay there, not wanting to leave the feeling of being completely loved, experiencing liberation from all his anxieties. He felt wholly cleansed and new. He raised his arms, spread his legs to make a sand angel, and laughed. He felt the love and joy of being a young child and did not want it to stop.

"That was amazing!" He shouted into the wind.

Simon laughed. "Good! Now give another what you have received from love, and you will light the world."

21.Secrets.

Tuesday, 1998-02-17, 9 PM, near HIENGHENE

Louya found Sam lying in his sand angel, laughing as he gazed at the full moon and stars that seemed close enough to pluck.

"Did you see that? I felt Simon lifting me! Incredible!"

"God always wants us to know joy! But we get in the way. Your heart asked for help. That made all the difference. Simon didn't do that. You did!"

"That has happened to you before?"

She nodded and smiled as she helped Sam to his feet. "Only Moura helps me. Come, it will be dark soon. We will wait here until morning."

Sam followed Louya to what seemed to be another dune until Louya showed him how the rock protruding from the cliffside above the dune harbored a small enclosure. Sam followed her behind the rock to lay in the cool sand beside her.

"This is my favorite place. We will be safe until morning. Moura watches over the Montanya mountain range. I come here sometimes to listen to her."

Sam was still floating in his life-changing experience of joy. He crawled up the sand until he could see over the dune. When the fog lifted, they had an unlimited view of possible danger. The comforting sound of the tranquil surf tempted him to continue his life-changing experience of joy. But his survival instincts prevailed, and he pulled back down into the safety of their cavern.

Louya had been silent for a while, listening, and now her tone was frosty.

"She is pretty."

"Who, Moura?" Sam sneezed.

"No. Moura is beautiful. Amy is pretty."

"I guess so. Uh-huh."

"She would make any man a good wife." Louya continued.

"I guess so. I'm sure my brother agrees with you. Hey, I can feel a breeze coming from back there!" Sam crouched to his knees and waved his hands before him until he felt safe about crawling toward the back of the small cavern.

"Are you not afraid you will lose her to your brother?" Louya seemed determined to investigate questions he wanted to avoid.

"I already have. Amy can be unpredictable. She shouldn't even be here."

"I do not understand."

"Look, it's Amy. It will always be about some drama and all these emotions swinging her back and forth, even if something is bad for her. I'm just realizing now that I can't explain Amyland because I never understood her."

Sam could see a tight aperture at the back of the cavern. He felt a breeze coming from inside the mountain they were under, and he was sure that if he laid down, he could pull himself forward into the aperture with his fingers.

"There is nothing back there," she said. "My brother searched there when he was a boy. There is only rock." Sam slid back to face the unwanted conversation.

"A man must say what is to be. A wife should try to make her husband happy," Loya said as if this were a matter of fact.

"What makes you think I'm not the boss in my house?"

"I know you are not. You have the fire, and Amy fears your fire because she is water. She always wants to put your fire out. So this is why you felt confused and lost with her. You cannot use the fire in your heart to find your way anywhere."

"You think I have the fire? I always thought she had the temperament. I was just trying not to light her up."

"Same thing." Louya began brushing dried sand from her bare legs, pausing to inspect the scratches from her run through the forest.

"You are braver than you know, Sam Hale, but you will not see this until you find your ko."

"Sorry, I don't understand this, ko."

She stopped brushing and looked into his eyes. Her eyes filled with a deep feeling Sam hadn't seen there before.

"I did not understand it either. I found my ko when Felik was born. He became the most important thing in the world to me. When I am an old woman, Felik will be Chief. If I must, I will give my life to save him. And all the people of my village would help me try to save him."

"Even his father?"

"His father is American - but he has not been part of raising Felik."

"Oh, I'm sorry -- I didn't know. How do you feel about that?"

"It's okay -- now. We do fine - Felik's father knows about Felik. He sends money sometimes, and I send him pictures. He takes care of us when he can. We do not need anything more."

"How did you meet him?"

"When I was sixteen, he visited our island. His Grandfather knew my Grandfather from World War II. We did not spend much time together, but --"

Suddenly, Louya sat up, pressed the spot between his neck and shoulder, and forced him down and back just as two men passed on the beach a few feet away from their hideaway. The sound of their voices reverberated over the surf inside the cavern.

1. 1. 1. 12. ======

"True story! Swear to God! They let the lions come right up to you and eat out of your hand," one of the men said. His voice was high and whining above the surf.

"Aghh! It's drugs!" the other man growled in a deep, gruff voice of authority. Sam recognized the voice of Savos. He'd never heard the other voice before.

"This was real, I tell you! This man trained the lions. After they've eaten a full meal, they're like big pussycats. I even pet one of them on the back of the neck."

"They're trying to sell tickets, Jean-Claude. Some people will believe anything. For all you know, that was the only lion without teeth," Savos sneered.

"You see? That is your problem. So negative. You don't like the day; you don't like the night; you don't like the coffee; you don't like the food. Always le bourru. Why don't you shoot yourself and give us all a break?"

"Somebody's gotta stick around to keep you outta trouble, Jean-Claude."

1. 1. 1. 13. ======

As their voices faded, Sam relaxed and started crawling to peer over the beach, but Louya pressed him down into the sand again. In a few moments, Sam saw the reason. A woman approached them from the same direction the two men had. When she was close enough, a man ran from the trees to stop her.

"Amy! Tell Dixon that the Doctor hitting you is not my fault!" Louya recognized Luther's voice and mouthed his name.

"It's not! It's his! He was doing his exam, but he wanted more. I pushed him away and told him he was a fat, smelly, perverted little man. But he kept trying. So I slapped him in the face! Then he ripped my dress and hit me, and I fell to the floor. So I kicked him in the nuts and the jaw, just like Shelby showed me. I showed him who's boss!" Amy's voice was different, colder, and more calculating than Sam remembered.

"Shelby will be proud, " Luther laughed. "Look, they are looking for me. You have to keep walking now. Talk to Dixon!" Luther started to run back into the trees.

"Luther, stop! We just want to talk!" Savos was shouting as he ran toward the sound of Amy and Luther talking. Then Sam and Louya heard the sounds of two men running past.

"Don't hurt him! It's not his fault!" Amy cried out. They heard a skirmish in the sand.

"This was a trap?!" Luther shouted, sounding hurt and angry.

"I'm sorry, Luther," Amy shouted. Their voices faded into the sound of the surf.

The voices had been gone for a few minutes before Sam and Louya felt safe enough to crawl out and sneak a peek of what remained after the skirmish.

"Luther is such a fool!" Louya hissed the word "fool," filling it with the depth of her family's long-standing and bitter exasperation with Luther. "Luther thinks Dixon is so smart and great! We tried to tell him that Dixon was a bad man and that Luther should not do everything Dixon asked, but Luther would not listen. Luther said he liked how Dixon told him what to do. But you know this, Sam. Dixon needs a scapegoat for what happened to Amy."

"What the -- "Sam could see clothing, shoes, and a sign of trouble near their cavern entrance. But before he could finish, Louya pulled back and drew Sam back under the safety of their well-camouflaged, grassy overhang. Louya had seen the two men they had seen before coming back.

"Make it like nobody was ever here," Savos shouted. Then there were grunts and the sound of rushed running. After hearing only the sound of the steady surf for a while, Sam stumbled out from under the overhang.

"I can't see a thing moving. Can you?" Sam asked Louya.

"Nothing." Moving cautiously, Sam headed toward the last sound he thought he'd heard, hoping to see or hear them before they saw him so he could hide in the fog again.

Then, just when Sam felt the surf rushing over the tops of his feet, he stumbled onto the lifeless body of Luther, his face digging a ditch in the sand with each incoming wave. Sam struggled to pull the body above the surf line. An open wound on the back of Luther's head was still bleeding.

"Oh no! I knew this would happen!" Louya knelt next to the body and held Luther's lifeless hand in hers.

"He would not listen!" She rolled him over and punched her fist into her brother's chest in anger. "I tried to tell you. Grandfather tried to tell you. But you had to trust them," she said to Luther's lifeless body.

Sam fell into the sand beside Louya and enveloped her warm, sobbing body to his. Neither of them said anything for quite a while.

"Louya, we can't leave him here. We should call the police."

"No! No police until you are safe. They will be back for the body," Louya looked at Sam through swollen, teary eyes.

As if on her cue, they heard what sounded like the waxing and waning sound of a boat engine rising and falling in the surf a short time later, but Sam couldn't be sure. It seemed incredible that any boat might venture out in this weather and this close to nightfall.

They raced back to their cavern den.

"Dixon has probably already figured out how to pin Luther's murder on me. But he's still my brother. I can't believe he could have somebody murdered!"

The noose of local politics was tightening around his neck. Sam knew he had to do something to change course.

"Sam," Louya grabbed his shirt and pulled him close. "You still have time. You will never be free of your brother until you stand up to him. Simon will show you how to stop your brother. You are stronger than you believe you are."

Sam shook her off.

"Did Simon tell you it is your destiny to help us?"

"Sure, and I'll tell you what I told him. I have a good job. Tomorrow morning, I want to walk down the beach to the nearest town and be out of your lives forever."

And yet again, there was the foreboding.

"Sam, I think you know this already. But Savos told my Grandfather today that the bank has put your contract on hold," Louya said.

"I think that's not news. Savos told me yesterday to take a vacation while they wait for their hardware to arrive, so I think that's all he's telling your Grandfather. But maybe he's saying I need to wait longer? Hard to say," Sam said, making a mental note to check in with CDU and find out what they had heard.

"Did you know that Dixon came to us three years ago? He said he was investing in us and wanted us to stay independent. But Dixon lied. He made friends with our enemies, the Tangans, and claimed to own our land. That is why I asked Dave Lanquester to help and what brought you to us."

Sam fell back to the beach. Life seemed to confirm the self-loathing he learned in early childhood, leaving him nowhere to go but forward into battle with his brother, a battle he never wanted.

"You could have gone to anyone for help. Why Dave?"

"A long time ago, I asked Simon to tell Dave that Dave is Felik's father."

22.Louya.

Wednesday, 1998-02-18, 1 AM, near HIENGHENE

After Louya revealed that Felik's father was Dave Lanquester, Sam could not speak as he replayed all the eerie coincidences that led him to New Caledonia that no longer seemed eerie or coincidental. His mind reeled with all the ways he felt manipulated into now sitting in a cavern on a beach in the middle of the night to escape the wrath of his brother.

"About a month ago, Felik found some old clothes of Dave's and made me take them for a paternity test," Louya said, breaking Sam's long silence.

"Why not just tell Felik who his father is, now that he's old enough?"

"Because Dave or Dixon could have been the father. Felik does not know this, but they were both here on business back then. Dixon was a wild boy, and I was also wild, so we had a relationship. Dave was older, and we liked each other, so we had a relationship. When they left me pregnant, the only thing that mattered was that a child needed a home. Our villages have raised children as our own for as long as we can remember."

"Does Felik know who his father is now?"

"After dinner - where you met Felik - we all left. That is when Grandfather gave Felik the test results, which said Dave was likely his father."

"Okay, that's pretty clear then. So how is any of this my business?"

"Because I married Dixon back then. We were young, and it was stupid, and it would not have mattered because Dixon left soon after that. But then he showed up in a wheelchair three years ago, blamed you for it, and threatened my family unless his wife came to live with him. It wasn't all bad at first. Dixon paid for everything I needed to care for Felik. In return, Dixon put me to work for him. But Dixon has been getting more cruel and mean since then."

"Simon never liked Dixon raising Felik. But he is blind, Grandfather is old, and Luther was well, you saw. Simon's idea to free Felik was to have Dave send Dixon's brother - you - to work on a consulting assignment at the bank. Dave agreed to send you because Simon said that once you were here, the bank would figure out some reason for you to stay. Then Simon will have time to guide you in understanding your spiritual mission and guide Felik in helping you. Simon has said then you will understand how much we need you."

"So everybody had a secret reason for manipulating me. Terrific; I feel so much better now! Did anyone consider simply asking me to help?"

"Moura has been sending you all the signs. There are many more souls in peril than you understand. Simon wants to guide you to understand. But you said it to Moura in your vision - 'you were not ready!' You have shouted this many times. Simon heard that. Even I heard that."

"I did think that, but I had no idea that Moura meant this! That whole 'free all souls' thing was too obtuse for me. So you thought it was better to corner me in a cave before telling me what's happening. Is that about it?" Sam asked.

"Sam, you have said you are not ready, and we have heard you. You should know that Simon, Grandfather and Grandmother, Felik, and I agree. And Simon tells us that getting you ready is his spiritual mission. He is determined to succeed in guiding you to know you are ready. Please understand that what you call 'cornering you' and 'manipulation' is our way of helping Simon."

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. The real Star of Sandalwood.

"The Star of Sandalwood ring will protect you until you are ready. But you will need the real ring," Louya said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out an ornate, platinum ring.

"An eight-carat blue sapphire surrounded by a two-layer, twenty-four-diamond cluster," Louya said, flashing the ring in the moonlight. Between the diamonds and the enormous blue sapphire, Sam could see immediately that this ring was undoubtedly different from the one Sam had smuggled out of the hotel.

"Wow, it's beautiful! So I was a decoy, and all those instructions at the hotel were all fake," Sam stated, unsurprised that he was the last to know that one show could mask another. Sam understood masking.

"It was Simon's idea to give Luther a fake. He said Luther would not know the difference."

"And if he did?"

Louya shrugged with a wry, knowing smile.

"This is not just a ring. The power of all Kanaks passes through it. Anyone who does not deserve to wear the ring is stealing from our ancestors, and they will suffer."

She crossed her arms before her and looked straight up.

"Through this ring, our ancestors hear Moura call. She will send thunder, lightning, and many lines of light to cross each other, all coming together through the ring. When the rightful one wears the ring and puts their hand on anyone prepared to sacrifice their life for good, all light will go through the rightful one, and enemies will be gone. When Moura put her hand on her forehead, all the Tangans on the island died. But so did Moura - she gave her life to save us through this ring."

"All right. I don't understand, but I'll wear the ring if it makes you happy." They lay beside each other, staring out over the ocean.

"This island has many stories to tell," she said. The fog was lifting.

"Did your sister Moura know she was going to die?"

"Everyone knew. But our ancestors only speak to us through the ring when the sacrifice is great. When I was a little girl, I hurt my head. Simon was wearing the ring then. He is a great healer. He used the ring to call the ancestors to speak to me here --" Louya pointed to her heart, "and I healed."

"Simon makes me nervous." Sam didn't think of Simon as a healer, but he had powerful insights. "He seems to know too much. Do you trust him?"

"Of course! He is always welcome among us. He is part of our home."

"So he is a relative of yours?"

"We are all related to Simon. He is a gentle, smart, wise man who can be very useful. You will understand this one day."

Sam rolled over on his back, staring at the stars appearing where the fog had disappeared. The mystery of Simon's mind seemed beyond his grasp. Worse, Simon's constant smiling made Sam feel stupid, as he often felt around his father. Tears swelled deep inside him as he looked out over the ocean.

"I can't think of anywhere I've been that felt like home."

"Sam, I am sorry we had to do things the way we did."

"Aghh! No surprise. It's just business. Besides, I never loved Chicago. It's an overpopulated place, great for doing business, but not a place I call home. Here, everywhere I look, there is an ocean. I've seen more water in the past few days than I might see all year in Chicago -- and we have a lakefront."

"You could learn to love it here, Sam." Sam knew she was looking at him for a positive response, but her easy way with intimacy freaked him out. His heart was not ready to let anyone in.

"Some people just can't change. You're looking at one of them. Something in the genes, I guess. Doomed to living an oversensitive, argumentative, impulsive, cranky life. That's me."

"Oh, Sam! Don't say such things about yourself. The spirits are listening!"

"Really? So if they are listening and know so much, maybe they can tell me why we've ended up in this little cave, hiding from everyone. What's that about?"

"This?" She gestured toward the emerald pool. "This is protection. You should be grateful!"

"Feels like a trap -- we need to keep moving." He crawled to the cavern entrance.

"Sam, you are afraid of how you feel now but have no reason to be."

"We need to go."

"There is time. We are safe for now. Try to be patient. If we go now, we will go round and round, get dizzy, and look silly." She laughed. "Instead, we sit very still and breathe and make a way to receive all the gifts the universe is sending us now."

"You sound like Simon. The trouble is, every time I sit still and just wait, I start to remember every bad thing I've ever done. I can't imagine a worse way to spend my time."

"There must be some good things. You are a good man. You cannot remember a good morning? Or a day when you did something good?"

"Not right off, no."

"How sad. I think about a place where children can see how their ancestors lived. They were happy people. They farmed and fished and did not try to control their surroundings. They did not know they were poor until boats arrived with Europeans who told them they were poor. They accepted this island as a gift from the gods and believed they were rich."

Louya lay beside him, rolled onto her back, looked up into his eyes, and brushed away sand off the collar of his shirt. Her hand caressed his. She pulled him to her mouth and kissed him as his leg fell between hers, and she drew him into her embrace. Despite his inner resistance, Louya was deep and warm, inviting him on with every gentle touch, her hands rushing over his back.

23.Deliverance.

Wednesday, 1998-02-18, 2 AM, near HIENGHENE

"What is that? "Sam rolled away from where he was sleeping beside Louya in their cavern, alerted by a deep, whispered thrumming sound. He scrambled up to a higher elevation to scan the ocean for any sign of the source at this hour. The sound developed into the roar of a helicopter coming from far up the beach, and Sam could see something shimmering far out in the bay.

"There!" Sam pointed out to the ocean. "The same three flashes, then two. It's a signal. What the -- it's coming ashore."

"They are delivering the harvest," Louya whispered.

"In the middle of the night?"

"Drugs. Usually, these boats come every night up north when the weather is good. But this far south, they may be looking for us. Get down! We must leave here. Now!" Louya grabbed their belongings and scrambled to the cavern entrance, pulling him behind her as she made her way to the back.

"If we go deep enough, they cannot find us," said Louya.

"Who?"

She didn't answer him. Sam heard the sound of rock scraping rock; then she disappeared into the back of the cavern.

"Louya?" Sam whispered. He thought their small cavern where they were hiding was only a shallow pocket carved out by the tides with nowhere to retreat in the back. But now, Louya seemed to have opened the back wall, which she had said earlier was a dead end.

"Here, Sam!" He followed Louya's voice, groping his way forward, using the curvatures in the ceiling to guide him until he could only crawl.

"Back here." When it seemed like he had nowhere to go, he reached up and found space above him. And he could feel a much colder, damper air coming from that direction. There was an attic, he realized.

"Gotcha!" Louya exclaimed when she grasped his outstretched, flailing hand. With her help, he could pull himself into the cavern's attic and complete darkness.

"I know the way," Louya announced. He was dependent on the sound of her confident voice. "Hold onto my leg. We must get far enough inside so they cannot find us." Sam grabbed her ankle, and she started crawling.

"Who are they?"

"Savos and the Tangans." Then she reached back and shoved him against a wall, poking his chest to tell me to remain still.

Sam lay in a gnarled, paralyzed position among the dirt and roots while he listened to the sound of a helicopter drawing in close. A light flashed into the den below them, and he felt Louya's panic as she pressed her hand to his chest. But the searchlights moved on. Sam felt a sneeze brewing in the dank and musty dead air, thought about each breath, and tried to calm his pounding heart.

"They probably know that the ring was fake and are looking for us," Louya said when the sound of the boat disappeared down the beach. "When they find Luther's body moved from the beach, they will think we must be nearby. Help me block the tunnel again."

Sam followed her back down to the tunnel entrance. Together, in a space about the size of a small bathroom, they carried and pushed thirty or more nearby basketball-sized boulders strewn around the area to block an entrance the size of a four-foot-high door.

"We need to block the airflow so they believe there is no tunnel," Louya said midway through building the blockade. Revealing that this was not her first blockade here, she retrieved a pail and a folded, clear plastic dropcloth from the back of the small cavern. Louya gathered and threw sand over the blockade using the pail while Sam continued tossing on smaller boulders. Then she draped the dropcloth over the blockade, and they continued with sand and boulders until they felt no airflow from the other side.

When the blockade was complete, they lay side-by-side facing each other, panting in their cold, wet rock tomb. Then Sam felt Louya's hand touch his shoulder and jumped away from what he imagined was a spider or worse.

"Shhhh. It's me, Sam," For a brief moment, he felt the heat of her breath and her lips pressed against his cheek, nose, and mouth, even though there was enough room for both of them to be apart.

"Hide this under your shirt," she said, pushing back from Sam. Sam felt her hands taking charge. She opened his shirt, and he struggled in the dark to help. Then he felt a plastic bag covering something the size of a large manila envelope pressed to his chest and tucked under his belt.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"Do not lose it. For many reasons, we keep it hidden here, along with supplies, in case we get trapped. It has answers to many of your questions. After you read it later, I will put it back here."

"Hurry, Sam!" Louya's tone was insistent and urgent as she rebuttoned his shirt to secure the package.

"We have to go. Now!"

"...still can't see a thing!" Sam hissed.

Louya, a woman of mysterious abilities sometimes, placed the tip of her finger on his forehead. Whatever Louya did to his eyesight, he found he could now crawl behind her into the dark as if he'd spent all his life in this labyrinth of tunnels. They sped past overhangs, turned sharp corners, and jumped pits along the way with an effortlessness he would not have expected.

When they made a final, long climb in the dark through a narrow rock fracture and entered a large cavern, they could only hear the occasional plink of water dropping into a dimly lit underground lake. Sam couldn't tell how large the lake was, but there was no visible path around it.

"During World War II, these caves were part of a submarine base for small American submarines. The Americans used the underground river to fill the cave when they wanted the submarines to enter. When the Americans left, they dammed the river, filling this lake with water. They thought this would block anyone from ever coming in like we did."

"We are on the far side of the mountain from where your brother works. Your brother keeps people he uses for his experiments on the far side, up higher where it is always dry."

"Keeps people? What experiments?"

"Lifetimes of Pleasure, he calls this..." She snorted. "For the rich! He promises to make them younger. But we know that not all his experiments work. We think he hides his mistakes in these caves when he does not want anyone to find out. In return for their lives, he makes them package his drugs for shipping."

"I wish we weren't related," Sam muttered.

"We will have to swim across. Can you swim?"

"When I was a kid, I could swim," he admitted, a hint of regret in his voice. "But with this gut, well -- ." His words went unheard. She'd already waded into the water and disappeared from his sight, leaving him to face his fears alone.

"Louya?"

"Come ahead, Sam. The water is fresh from the rain but not too deep. I am still walking. Move calm and even. Do not kick more than you need to." Sam waded in up to his waist, then stopped to listen. For a moment, he thought about what might be under the water other than him and Louya. But Sam quickly pushed his fears aside to concentrate on moving calmly and evenly so as not to disturb whatever it might be.

"Sam? We must be quick," Louya whispered. Her voice was a short distance away, so Sam followed the sound. The cool water was up around his neck before Sam bumped into Louya again.

"We will have to swim underwater, under a large rock for a short bit, then come up on the other side. When we go under, pull along the rope and don't let go. Try not to kick. Be sure you take a big breath. Do not be afraid; many have done this before. Ready?"

"I smoke too much." It was his last thought before forcing the damp air deep into his wheezing lungs and following Louya underwater. Sam lost her momentarily at the base of the large rock and started thrashing his hands around until she pulled his hand back on the rope. After that, he could follow the rope to a small air pocket, where he gasped for air as he started to tread water.

"Don't kick, Sam. Hang onto the rope. The water is too high. We will have to keep going. Ready?"

Sam could only nod. He knew he'd never be more ready. Louya took a deep breath; he did the same and followed her again. This time, the rope took them down deeper. He was about to turn back when he felt the rough rock surface turn a corner and head back to the surface. This time, he felt no ceiling in reach. With a spurt of energy, he kicked until he burst toward the promise of a much larger air pocket, passing Louya to be first to gulp air this time.

"Which way?" he gasped when Louya sprang from the water seconds later.

"This way!" she tugged his shirt to lead him a few feet away until he felt a hard surface under his feet. At first, Sam stood, then crawled, following Louya out of the water and onto the comfort of a large, dry, flat rock, where he collapsed, panting for air.

"Over there is the way out," she said, pointing up and behind her to a rock fracture lit by the moon far ahead and above them.

After a short climb toward the moonlight, they took their first steps onto the scanty shoreline of an emerald-green pool. They were outside the mountain but not at the ocean shoreline. Twenty-four large, oblong rocks rounded by eons of erosion jutted from far below the water's surface to surround the emerald pool. The large rocks emerged from the ocean to heights ranging from three feet to some towering over a hundred feet. To the passing boat, the rock faces created the illusion of vertical cliffs unsuitable for landing a boat. But to Louya and Sam on the inside of the rocks, they were in the embrace of a comfortably well-hidden hideout away from prying eyes.

"This is my family's secret place. We sometimes use it as a safe house." Louya walked along the sandy shoreline around the pool, which seemed to rise and fall gently as if breathing with the surf beyond the rock wall. She showed him a few perches atop different rocks where they could take turns keeping watch without being seen.

Then Louya showed him the only other entrance from the north.

"If someone comes through this entrance, they will be single-file, and we will hear them coming in time to leave." Louya found a small stone and threw a popup fly into the narrow sandy path entrance, then pointed to the amplified echo of the rock bouncing around rocks until it was on the ground. Then she led him single-file along the narrow, sandy path that snaked through the rocks to an entrance from the ocean that was invisible to only the most determined beachcomber.

"Do the Tangans know about this place?"

"Yes, but they have many places to look before searching here. And if we take turns keeping watch, we will have time to return to the tunnels."

Sam volunteered for the first watch atop a rock above the cavern entrance where they had entered the hideout. He was, at first, vigilant and listened for any signs of danger. But after a short time in direct sunlight, Sam found a different, flat place atop a large rock in the shade of a palm tree. He lay down, exhausted, and Louya dropped in beside him. They lay there quietly, surrounded by paradise, until soon after, Louya was asleep.

After a while, the calming, leisurely brush of waves muted by the boulders, the warm morning sun beating through the palm leaves and down on his bare chest, and the birds flying everywhere lulled him to gratitude.

Sam could still hear Amy, standing at the foot of the bed during their last fight and screaming, "You will never find peace in this life." But at that moment, as he fell asleep in their small cove hideout, Sam believed that a loving God had delivered him to these still waters to restore his soul.

Wednesday, 1998-02-18, 4 AM, near HIENGHENE

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 2. And then he was standing by a pool at the base of a waterfall.

Sam was in the repeater vision he called "The Waterfall." As usual, he stood at the base of a waterfall that started somewhere in a cloud above, flanked by tall white marble pillars stretching up into the cloud, commanding reverent obedience.

But this time, as he watched, the waterfall separated into two waterfalls to flank a golden gate stretching into the cloud between them, and the gate doors opened.

"You need to show them that you have learned," Moura smiled, then waved her hand from one side to the other.

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 3. And then he was in a golden Circle.

A Circle of twenty-four golden lights filled the darkness all around Sam. At the center of the circle was one bright white star set in indigo and surrounded by a golden haze. He felt great joy whenever the star appeared in his visions since the golden haze emitted a powerful, constant, and unconditional love. He'd been dreaming about this circle since he was a boy, seeing himself at peace at its center, his true home.

"The Star of Sandalwood," Moura whispered, smiling at him. Above in the dark hills on the far side, behind Moura, were ancestors he recognized that had loved him as a boy, appearing around the golden light in a large crowd of smiling people, there to watch events unfold.

He was in a starlight-filled place, standing alone on a round, golden catafalque before an unfocused image of a King with a strong constitution, wearing a crown of multiple jewels and a robe of golden threads. His expression seemed surprised.

"Why have you returned?"

His image became more apparent to Sam. The King appeared to be a warrior without an apparent reason for his disconcerting humility. Around him in a Circle, the starlights transformed into the faces of twenty-four men and women.

The King exhaled when Sam did not answer. Then the King looked around the circle of twenty-four.

"This one is a Lamb," he said forcefully to the circle and pointed toward Sam. "He will break the seals."

"Me?" Sam looked around. He was alone, suspended without mass or form, "before a supreme being. Yet he somehow knew this place and that they had cast him out many times. Many of the faces of those in the circle were dubious about his unexpected presence. Sam understood because he shared their doubts.

"He will break the seven seals on this scroll and be released from the consequences of his choices."

Memories flooded into his awareness. Sam feared that breaking each seal meant facing and passing tests that he had a history of failing.

"There is no more time," the King interrupted his thoughts. "The decision is made. Your time is now."

Sam felt the eyes of the circle burning into his heart when he heard the rumble of overwhelming agreement among the unconvinced Elders.

And he felt the old fear that they might rise against him once more. He was about to defend himself when the King spoke.

"Who speaks for this Lamb?"

"I do." Simon stepped forward, seeming to have been there all along. "He knows we need his help, but the choice is his. We cannot beg. We must be patient and wait for him to realize his destiny."

"My destiny?"

"You are the one that brings the changes," said Simon, turning to whisper to Sam. "Others will follow, but you are the one that must open the doors."

"And who are you to speak for me?" Sam still wanted to speak in his defense.

"I am your guide!" he leaned in to whisper while smiling at the King. "And today, I am your lawyer saving you from oblivion. Trust me," Simon offered Sam a confident smile and a pat on the shoulder.

"When you break those seals," Simon spoke to Sam loud enough to be heard by the Elders. "Those who believe they need darkness, whether kings and queens, strong or weak, rich or poor, will hide in the rocks of the mountains, afraid that this will end the darkness."

Simon turned to the King again.

"His fears blind him," Simon said, and he was right. Sam remembered more than one life when they sent him to live as a hermit, hunter, and warrior, to watch others die of famine, war, and disease so he would learn to love peace.

"Impulsive," two pillars spoke in unison. They told the truth. Sam remembered many lifetimes when he had been impulsive. In one, he had accused God of allowing tribes to die from incurable diseases. The traders brought these diseases on tall ships. He felt guilty for being too quick to encourage the owners of the tall ships to meet with the tribes. When the diseases came, he asked God to intervene and help all those people to be well and end their suffering. He'd asked for help from those struggling alone and in the dark. But when no help appeared, he raised his voice angrily and accused God of being cold and heartless.

"We gave him too much," a second pillar, this female, spoke the truth. Sam remembered more than one life when he had lived as an enslaved person, prostitute, thief, and wanderer. Each time, they sent him from the circle to fulfill all his desires and watch himself and many others die of despair, darkness, and joylessness so he would learn to love pure joy.

"We are aware of all these truths." The King spoke with all the authority needed to render justice and mercy. While he did not ask a question, he seemed open to understanding if mercy was possible in this case. Each time the King returned Sam to another lifetime, he would say Sam needed to learn obedience and reverence in prayer.

"He believes he is not ready," Simon made a case for mercy in a matter-of-fact yet welcoming tone of voice. He walked around the circle, making eye contact and warmly greeting friends among the Elder pillars who had spoken the truth.

"Friends, this Lamb is understood. He does not yet believe he is who we know him to be. We must give him compassion and hope for the day he forgives himself for his disbelief."

Then, all spacetime seemed to collapse around Sam until he was the one remaining speck of Somethingness within Nothingness. He looked around to see Nothing - no lights in the sky, no sounds of crickets, birds, or waterfalls. He could not tell up from down, inside from outside, gravity from floating, breathing from not breathing. He felt neither hunger nor fear. He felt no need to choose between dualities in this Nothingness. Sam was alone, filled only with memories of past loves, hopes, and faith.

Sam dropped to his knees and closed his eyes to pray.

"Show me the way, Lord. Be my shepherd! Show me the truth of who I am."

As Sam repeated this prayer, the depth of his desire grew more passionate. Then, he heard the King's commanding in a gravelly, energy-filled voice break the silence of Nothingness.

24.The First Seal.

Wednesday, 1998-02-18, 4 AM, near HIENGHENE

"It is time for this Lamb to break the First Seal," Sam heard the King say. Instantly, the Golden Circle reappeared around Sam. Sam felt himself breathing and saw many visions circling the event horizon of the spiritual war, waiting to be received. He felt the force of gravity, and Sam remembered hunger, pain, and fear from the inner conflicts in his life and felt anxiety. But when Sam felt his heartbeat, he knew only love, hope, faith, and joy.

"Thank you!" Sam shouted. Sam knelt in grateful prayer. Then Simon appeared, handed Sam a sealed scroll, and prayed for Sam to find the strength to forgive himself and others for what he was about to learn.

And so it was that Sam broke the First Seal.

"The King has asked me to show you the Holdings," Simon whispered. Then Sam felt Simon's hand on his neck. Simon's insistence had Sam's full attention.

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 4. And then he saw a Holding area.

Sam was in a vision because he flicked his wristband and felt no pain. He was in a darkened enclosure with large leather seats overlooking a large, dimly lit cavern far below that seemed about the size of a football stadium. Sam could see about a hundred or more people on the cavern floor, many at least over sixty and some perhaps into their eighties, either sleeping or huddled together on rows of cots pulled in small groups around the cavern floor.

Sam looked around the cavern encased by large sandalwood roots, each about a foot in diameter, spaced less than a foot apart, attached to the cavern walls. The roots grew from below the cavern floor to disappear above the cavern's rock ceiling. Along the vertical column of each root were bulges that seemed to be cysts filled with a milky substance. From what Sam could see, he figured there were hundreds of thousands of these cysts.

Havocer-like beings guarded entrances from the four cardinal directions into the cavern. Sam heard the occasional snoring, muffled crying, and stifled coughing, filling the place with enforced silence.

"Grandfather calls this 'The Place of No Hope.'" Sam heard Felik whisper, only then noticing that Felik had joined them in this vision.

"Do you know what is going on?" Sam whispered to Felik.

"No," Felik whispered.

"You can see those Havocer things?" asked Sam.

"Most mortals only see the cavern, the sandalwood roots, and nothing else," Simon whispered from behind them in the room. "The King chose Felik to see what you see, Sam,"

As they watched, a Havocer-like-being scooped an older woman up with its tentacles and root extensions, carried her to an empty cavity high up along a sandalwood root, and extended its tentacles far above itself to seal her inside by spewing the same milky substance seen in the other cysts. The process happened with a robotic detachment unaffected by the woman's lonely, frightened cries.

"Those guys look angry," Felik whispered, pointing to one section far on the other side of the cavern where a group of ten or more Havocer-like beings swarmed around a ruptured cyst on a sandalwood root.

"The O are angry because the King released you from your pod, Sam," Simon stated in his matter-of-fact tone. But for Sam, what seemed to be a supernatural vision suddenly became deeply personal. He felt as if a car had hit him. He couldn't breathe and sat in one of the leather chairs to gather his thoughts and emotions.

"The O? Released me from a pod? I'm right here!"

"Havocer is an O. The O are inspecting the ruptured pod where they thought they had trapped your soul, Sam."

As Sam watched, one O wrapped its root-like tentacles around the entire ruptured root from floor to ceiling in what appeared to be a healing process. Within moments, a dark and oily sludge drained from the root and pooled under this O as if bleeding the root. The large sandalwood root was gone when this O retracted its root-like tentacles. This O then used its long tongue as a straw to drain the pool around it.

Hundreds of other O, working in teams of three to five, inspected each of the large sandalwood roots attached to the rock wall of the cavern. They wrapped each root similarly but did not bleed the root. Their process was thorough. They seemed to add a new layer of clear epoxy-like substance around each root, but otherwise, they left the roots unchanged.

"The O is a genus of parasite species that feed on dark matter. These places are called Holdings. Holdings exist in spacetime after mortal death, where all souls await judgment. The O steals unforgiven souls from these Holding areas and stores them in sandalwood roots. Then they offer each soul a choice: Haunt living souls into becoming unforgiven souls or become dark matter. Many become dark matter."

"I was an unforgiven soul?"

"That is what the O wanted you to believe," Simon answered quickly.

"The O are angry because the King heard your prayer, showed mercy, and freed you. The King wanted you to see this place to understand what was at stake. The O has grown more rapidly in underground caverns since your brother found a way to supply them with more unforgiven souls than ever."

"The King has given you another chance, Sam. But this time, you must succeed in your spiritual mission to free all souls because your soul will not return to a pod. It will become dark matter if you fail. Do you understand?"

25.The Cove.

Wednesday, 1998-02-18, 10 AM, near HIENGHENE

Louya and Sam felt safe roaming within the boundaries of their private cove hideout. Louya had just returned from an early morning "shopping trip," as she called it, back through the tunnel complex to meet Felik, where she picked up nutritional food from Grandmother, supplies, and news.

Soon after she returned, Louya took to the water to swim like a dolphin, diving under, surfacing in a burst, then bellyflopping back under, each time surfacing in a different spot within a sphere. Sam fell asleep watching her express his feelings of peace and harmony from his comfortable place in the shade and sand.

That was when Sam felt the constricting feeling around his legs, which Sam had learned meant that Arcturus was preparing to transport him into another haunting vision.

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 5. And then he was in Dixon's Cave Office.

This time, Sam found himself in a vision inside Dixon's cave office, the place Sam knew only from seeing it through a deep crevice in the rock wall cave next door. Sam could now see around the entire room from where he stood in a corner behind a statue.

Dixon sat in his wheelchair, reading and clicking between multiple computer monitors. On one of the monitors, Sam read that it was 4 AM. The only sound in the office was the subdued hum of computer fans and Dixon's occasional clicking and typing.

"You must stop the Lamb," Havocer said, his entrance surprising Dixon and Sam. Havocer was suddenly sitting in the middle of the carpeted floor downstage of the catafalque supporting Dixon's wheelchair-enabled office.

"You again! What are you talking about? I'm working!" Dixon growled while looking at his computer screens as if to show that Havocer's arrivals were unsurprising and annoying. Having a vision of Dixon meeting with Havocer was new. Sam pushed aside his many existential questions to stay present in the moment.

"Do I need to remind you of the terms of our agreement?"

Dixon sighed and pushed back from his multiple computer screens. "Havocer, you're a flunky. I don't answer to flunkies."

"The board sent me. Schaumele has infiltrated your network. He has seen everything you are doing."

"And I believe you why? The O may be geniuses at the whole parasites-taking-over-the-world thing, but they know nothing about computers. I pay my guys a lot to secure everything you see here!"

"I have seen Schaumele reading your spreadsheet with names, pledges, and red lines," Havocer emitted a black spew. Sam knew from his ongoing deciphering of spew color that black was Havocer's way of projecting authority.

"How could he see that?"

"It does not matter. The board wants to remind you that your deal is to haunt one living soul so that it remains unforgiven. Instead, Schaumele's soul is gone from its place."

"What is gone? Sam is here on the island."

"His unforgiven soul is not in its pod, near where we store yours. Something has released it. We are still investigating how this happened," Havocer spewed something red that landed on the carpet before the catafalque supporting Dixon's desk and chair. The spew set fire to a spot before Havocer spewed something white on the fire that extinguished it.

"Sam is my problem. We know where he is, and I have people watching him," Dixon asked.

"Schaumele has the ring. The board fears he will use the ring to destroy the O food supply once he has mastered the necessary skills."

"Havocer, what do you want?"

"The board wants you to use your new medications to return Schaumele to his place in our system."

"And if I do that, what's in it for me?"

"The board will promote you."

"And?"

"You will have access to secret information you cannot get from all your computer systems."

"Still not good enough. When I succeed, I will report to the board."

"And if you fail, you will become dark matter. I will enjoy that meal." Havocer spewed something black that filled Dixon's office with black smog.

1. 1. 1. 14. ======

Thursday, 1998-02-19, 10 AM, near HIENGHENE

"You must keep reading the journal, Sam. Simon was very clear about this. After reading, he said you will understand the Star of Sandalwood ring." Louya had said before leaving for her morning shopping trip.

The wrinkled, brown bag beside him on the white sand drew his attention. He had almost finished reading through it. Settling back against a palm tree that offered shade and a sanctuary from which he could see anything threatening far down the beach in both directions, he pulled out a leather folder.

He carefully unwrapped it to review the now familiar yellowing manuscript, briefly noting the meticulously handwritten title, identifying this as an official document.

"The Last Will of Karl Lanquester; July 1, 1790."

Sam had learned that the document was written by Karl, a jeweler from Nice, France, to divide his possessions between two daughters, Wilma and Hamel. For Hamel, there was a pipe collection, chair, and a storage chest "made of the most pleasing sandalwood from Canton and filled with diamonds." For Wilma, there was his entire collection of rare books, noting their shared love of reading.

Sam also learned that Karl had escaped by boat from France with someone named Cecelia, the woman for whom he made a necklace. And it was Cecelia who betrayed Karl for a pirate king that had overtaken their ship.

There had been gaps of sometimes months and years between journal entries. Still, Sam could piece together that Karl was the only survivor from a storm that wrecked their ship and that pirates had captured it shortly before the storm. Karl ended up stranded on this island, where he became known as Buano (White Man) when he fell in love with a native woman named Moura. Then Karl unintentionally married Moura after giving a pig he killed for food to her grandfather.

There were many diagrams of a necklace. Karl wrote of the necklace's design: "A symphony to present the allure of her long neck and deep cleavage."

But Sam was most interested in two other diagrams.

One diagram was of the Star of Sandalwood ring he wore on his little finger. Karl annotated the ring's design: "At the heart of this sapphire is eternal love." The diagram seemed to show a small compartment under the eight-carat blue sapphire. But Sam had been unable to confirm the compartment existed despite studying the diagram for clues for the past few days.

Another diagram, titled The Golden Circle, showed the twenty-four light pillars and a more significant light that Karl labeled the King. Karl seemed to have designed the Star of Sandalwood to describe the same Golden Circle that Sam had been seeing.

1. 1. 1. 15. ======

When she returned from her shopping trip, Louya dropped everything at the cavern entrance and ran to the water, excited to spend time simply swimming. Louya ended another performance by circling a few times before emerging from the water, picking up a towel, smiling, and drying off as Sam applauded.

"That was beautiful. I could watch that all day!" Sam exclaimed.

"I love to swim! It makes me feel free and connected to the universe," Louya smiled, enjoying his admiration. "I used to last much longer. But I'm getting older, and we need to leave," Louya said, picking up food and clothes around where Sam sat. Sam groaned. After a few attempts at a lotus position, he had finally found a comfortable position to sit cross-legged in the sand with his back braced by a log under the shade of a tree.

"Grandfather warned us," she said.

"I know," Sam said. When Louya returned from her first shopping trip, she told Sam that Grandfather wanted them to be in the cavern from eleven to three in the afternoon to avoid being seen by the midday helicopter patrols that passed over the cove hideout.

So when they had removed any trace of being on the beach, they hustled back to the cavern entrance. Louya shook out folded blankets near the entrance to remake their nest, and she and Sam settled in to wait for the mid-afternoon sun to pass.

"How far are you?" Louya asked when Sam picked up the journal again.

"I'm through all of it. One weird thing -- Karl lived here over two hundred years ago, but I feel we are connected, somehow."

Louya sat up again, retook the lotus position, and looked deeply at him.

"It is not weird, Sam. Your ko is older than mine, older than most people -- very, very old. Simon has told us you have a lot of cleaning to do because your ko is so old. You have visions to show buried energies that need forgiveness so your ko can be released to know joy. You understand? This work is huge, much more important than success in the world - it is about saving all the eternal souls connected to your old soul."

"So I feel so connected to Karl because I need to heal patterns from that lifetime? And after we do that, other places and times will come up. All of them need forgiveness to release me from habits of the past?"

"Yes, that is the work of the spirit. You have been given this gift for a reason. Each time something comes up, it will test your faith. But you must be strong and know that God is with you always, so your prayers for forgiveness and release will be more powerful than whatever comes up."

"Like your water dance," Sam smiled.

"Perfect. Now you understand."

They lay back together on the blankets, happy to enjoy the moment, breathe and fall asleep.

Then Sam sat up.

"So if I was Karl, why can't I open this ring?" Sam flashed the Star of Sandalwood at Louya.

"Souls do not get wiser or smarter just because they are older," she laughed. "Each lifetime, we receive a gift of choice to know the love of our creator. We can choose the easy path of selfishness and use the water dance to learn more and more skills. In this way, a soul can be older but more and more ignorant and unforgiven. Or, we can choose the hard path to know gratitude, faith, hope, forgiveness, love, and joy. We receive no remembered skills on this path, only negative beliefs that need forgiveness."

"When does the water dance end?"

"When we become One with the water dance, by living as One with God's love. Like Moura. She was a water dancer. When Tangans attacked my ancestors, they took Moura away and drove my family to Montanya. But Moura had this ring." Louya pushed down on the sapphire into its gold filigree setting. A slight click sound from the ring, and the sapphire swung open on a hinge hidden under gold embroidery. Under the sapphire was the small empty compartment from the diagram. At the base of the compartment was a 1mm round diamond.

"To save the souls of her people, Moura put sandalwood oil into this place under the stone and prayed," Louya said as she put the ring on her ring finger and placed her hand on her forehead. "This is the secret of how Moura sacrificed herself to end the lives of those Tangans."

"When you are ready, Moura will return through the ring to help you free souls who seek God's love."

26.Crossing the River

Friday, 1998-02-20, 9 AM, near HIENGHENE

"Sam, Simon needs to see you," Felik said when Sam and Louya arrived at the tunnel junction for their daily "shopping trip." Sam had told Louya that he wanted to thank Felik for his help. But the truth was that he felt rested and ready for a physical challenge. Felik pointed to a tunnel Sam had not taken until now.

"Blackie is waiting to take you there," Felik said as he turned and headed into the tunnel. Louya held back.

"This is good news, Sam. It means Simon wants to begin your training. So you go listen to Simon, and I will go home," Louya said, patting Sam's chest gently before turning and heading back to Chief Paw through the tunnel that had led them to the hideout.

"Blackie?" Sam asked Felik as he ducked down to crawl behind Felik into the tunnel.

"Blackie is a special horse. He knows a lot. All you need to do is ride, and he will get you to Simon," Felik said as he led using a flashlight. Unlike the circuitous and treacherous tunnels Louya had led him through, Felik's tunnel seemed manufactured. This tunnel provided a long, steady ascent to the surface, which grew from a pinpoint of light to an eight-foot-high entrance camouflaged by large boulders partially blocking the entrance. When they emerged, Sam saw a tall black horse saddled and waiting.

Sam hadn't ridden a horse since he was a boy and only on a horse in a long line of horses carrying tourists on a one-hour trail ride. Sam had barely climbed on, with the help of Felik and a nearby boulder, when Blackie took off in a run. Grasping for mane or reins, Sam amazed himself that he was sitting upright despite being bounced and slapped around.

Not long into the ride, Blackie climbed up a steep hill off the trail. When he reached the top, Blackie plummeted down a steep slope. Sam leaned back against the slope as he grabbed Blackie's mane, and Blackie flew past trees and jumped over creeks so quickly that it was all Sam could do to hang on in terror until they faced the red, dusty eyesore of an active nickel strip mine.

Sam could make out Noum and the bays surrounding it in the distance. A colony of trucks crawled over the red terraces, hauling the island's most precious nickel to barges for the long trip to the Dumbea refinery.

Blackie seemed to have a predetermined flight path, undeterred by Sam's flailing.

"Lord, I don't want to die!"

Blackie twisted, stood on his hind legs, and tore off to the right at a hard gallop into a forested ravine. Branches flew into Sam's face in a slashing frenzy, scraping his shirt and pants until they were shreds hanging off his bruised and sweaty body, and he was about to give up and drop off.

Suddenly, Blackie dropped away in an almost vertical leap down into the red dirt of another ravine. Sam barely hung on to Blackie's mane. When they reached the bottom, Blackie trotted them into the forest until they arrived at a pleasant, gentle creek.

After all the racing, Blackie finally decided it was time to stop and graze. Or perhaps more accurately, once Sam had dropped off the horse and hobbled to the broad and deep, rock-strewn river to celebrate his survival with fresh, cold mountain water, Blackie decided to drink as well. After a short rest, Sam tried to take the reins, but Blackie was determined to stay where he was. "C'mon, boy!" But his head flew up instead, ears alert and haunches quivering.

1. 1. 1. 16. ======

"That will not do much good, I'm afraid." Sam heard Simon's voice behind him before he heard footsteps and saw Simon's short, pot-bellied figure dressed in a light pastel orange gauze cloth appear out of the forest.

"Blackie was born and raised in this area. He will not leave this place unless I tell him to go."

"Your horse?"

Simon tapped his cane over to the visibly excited Blackie and ran his hands over Blackie's chest, nose, and head. "Good boy. Easy. He didn't mean it. No, he doesn't know much about horses. Yes, I'm sorry, but you were good to bring him here. Thank you, Blackie." Simon turned his attention from Blackie to Sam. "He is God's horse. We have been together since he was born."

"You live around here?"

"Over that hill and back into the forest." Simon pointed in the direction Blackie had been going. "But I have a trailer I keep just up the creek. I've been expecting you. You'll be safe here."

Although Sam heard a few birds, the scene reminded him of his peaceful vision of a cabin beside a broad, babbling river where he might retire.

"Why are you waiting for me here?" Sam returned to his quenching, then paused.

"To guide you across this river, of course. That's where you'll be spending your time, preparing." He pointed his stick to the far side of the river. All Sam could see were tall green trees and a dark forest, considerably darker than the ones on this side of the river.

"But first, you must learn how to cross the river."

"Seems simple enough. Just get on Blackie and let him do the rest."

"Blackie does not cross this river. You must do this alone."

"I'm hungry. Got anything to eat?"

"No food. I will show you only a few berries and roots when it is time."

"I'll starve to death!"

"Food is simply inefficient energy transformation. You must learn to fasten the mind to the source of that energy and draw what you need. Strive to achieve a state of breathlessness. In this way, release yourself from the dualities of this world. You will know how to cross the river and find great nourishment when you have achieved such a state and are no longer attached to these things."

"No idea what you're talking about..."

1. 1. 1. 17. ======

"Your soul is in great peril," Simon spoke as if beside him, but when Sam looked around, he saw that Simon was high on the hill beside the river. Simon was seated meditatively; his legs crossed, his back upright but not strained, his hands rested mid-calf, palms upright. He was facing toward a rising sun lighting up the red morning sky on the green hillside at a spot with few trees to block his clear vision of the calm, blue ocean. Simon had surrounded himself in a circle of lit candles of various shapes, colors, and sizes, most melted down to puddles of dry wax.

"And what am I supposed to do about that?" Sam huffed as he climbed toward Simon.

"God loves our souls, and the soul seeks God alone. But the mind is easily deceived by vanity, pride, and fears. You must learn to know with your soul so you can understand."

"I am trying. So far, I have witnessed people who have rejected me or tried to harm me in other ways. Yet somehow, I am the one accused. What's left to understand?"

"Beware the gaps!"

"What does that mean? What gaps?"

"Gaps are the mind's way of protecting us from facing what we do not want to face. Come, sit beside me."

Sam sat on a nearby rock and crossed his ankles. A cross-legged yoga position was beyond his ability, so this would have to do.

"Now rest the mind into each breath."

After what seemed like ten or more full breaths matching Simon's hypnotic breathing, Simon paused.

"How do you feel now, Sam?"

"Better. But I still feel like maybe you chose the wrong guy. I've been trying to tell you that."

"Do you know why you feel this way?"

"I lost my wife, and my employer is looking for any excuse to let me go. I can't go home because I can't afford the trip alone. I don't know or trust my companions. They seem to be using me for reasons I do not yet understand. Then again, everyone seems like a user to me. I'm tired and haven't showered or shaved in days. And I'm hungry."

"You complain about food when it is your soul that starves."

"Easy for you to say. You seem bigger than life, always smiling, doing healing work, and other amazing things. It all makes me feel stupid."

"You are not stupid, Sam."

"Well, you asked me how I feel. That's how I feel when I'm around you."

Simon smiled at him. It was not pity, but instead, Sam saw understanding and compassion.

"Thank you for being honest with me, Sam."

They sat in silence for what seemed ten or twenty minutes. The gentle morning breeze seemed to transform and pick up strength, but the sun rose, and the air was warm. They were focused on the moment, detached from the need to run from a potential storm.

"Simon?"

"Yes?"

"I am sorry. I seem to project my fears onto others when I'm most afraid that some dark roots in me will try to pull me down. I am sorry about that. Am I crazy? Does that make sense?"

"It makes perfect sense, Sam. Your soul vision is improving! And you are beginning to know your soul's purpose for this lifetime. We have much work ahead to release your soul from the roots of those patterns. I am here to help you with that. But I cannot help you if you do not want me to - do you want my help?"

"I am asking for your help."

"That is a good start, Sam!"

Friday, 1998-02-20, 3 PM, near HIENGHENE

Simon stood on a rock in the middle of the river now. Sam searched for a way to meet him, but the more he pondered the challenge, the more anxious he became.

"What happens if I never cross this river?"

"Probably nothing," Simon spoke as if beside him.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The word rang around Sam's mind until he couldn't hear the river. It was the word about his life. Nothing -- He'd done nothing with it, examined none of it, risked none of it.

So what was it that he needed to see over there?

1. 1. 1. 18. ======

Simon had moved and wasn't on the rock anymore. The river was still running in the same hypnotic way down the mountain and out to the ocean. But now Sam knew he had to cross the river or risk nothingness.

"OK. I can't do this alone -- the river is too deep and wide. Breathlessness -- that's what you said. OK, how?"

"Breathe. But watch the breath as it flows." Simon was there again on the rock.

"Yes. All right." And so it began. Sam sat on a soft, mossy area beside the river and breathed. Each breath was life itself, and Sam couldn't hold it very long. But he persisted this time because he wanted whatever lay ahead.

The more Sam did this breathing, the more his anxieties settled. He began to fix on the light ahead as it became more prominent. His mind drifted upward, watching his body below breathe as Sam floated above it. He looked around, and Simon was there, steady and smiling, reaching out to help him across. And then he was afraid again. The whole thing was too weird. He retreated to his body and opened his eyes.

"You must believe what your heart is showing you. Have faith. The only real pain the spirit feels is when you lose faith in yourself. You are learning to use your visions. Now, try again. Be as determined as the child taking its first step."

Sam closed his eyes again and quickly returned to his place beside Simon and above his body. And then, he was on the other side of the river, settling on the river-edge grassy turf. He looked around to find only dark caverns under the canopy of the tall green trees. While this might have been a scary place, Simon was seated beside him, smiling and weaving together strands of grass.

"Good. Now, do as I do. And remember to breathe."

So Sam sat beside Simon, picked up a few strands of grass from the pile before them, and began binding them together. Sam had to watch Simon closely since Simon was winding too fast to catch the pattern in one glance. But after watching a few knots complete, Sam could work independently.

"You must release yourself from your father," Simon told him, whose carefully woven piles of grass lay in neat stacks before him. Then Sam's father appeared beside him, sewing the grass into longer threads as if he'd been doing the job for years. Sam felt the old humiliation, the competition, the one-upmanship.

"Leave him alone," Simon spoke angrily to Sam's father, who looked up and stopped working. Sam could sense his father retreating, momentarily frozen by this superior force.

"I'm his teacher now. Leave him be," Simon repeated. Sam's father dropped his work and faded off to the side to watch.

"I've temporarily removed an obstacle for you, Sam, but the rest is up to you now. You're free to choose as you wish," Simon seemed everywhere around him.

"But I don't know what to do --"

"Seek God in all things. Learn to see by tuning out distracting life forces. Be scientific and test various choices. Many paths lead to the same place, but only the ones marked by the effects of your past can bring you to a full realization of who you are."

"Why not show me the way and save me the trouble?"

"The gift of your creation is free will. You may use it freely to seek joy or cause trouble for yourself that you'll have to overcome later. But if you seek joy, you must develop the habits of body, mind, and spirit to prepare yourself for all its power. You are like a tiny cup into which an ocean of bliss waits to fill. You cannot contain this ocean in such a small cup. Were you to try, you would become drunk with its power. The better way is to increase the size of the cup by mastering your intuitive powers. Only then can you trust your intuition to guide you. That is what we are doing. And the best way to do that is through meditation on the divine bliss you seek and a wise choice of activities that help you develop good habits."

"How long is this going to take?" Sam finally asked.

"You measure time within this lifetime. I measure time as your soul's expanding space across many lifetimes. You see yourself getting older and dying. But I see a soul passing ignorantly through yet another lifetime, still asleep, destined to arise and do great things but plodding through countless lifetimes, simply existing without making much progress."

"You can see all that?" Sam could hear his voice shaking.

"Yes, if you continue along this chosen path to nothing. On that path are endless distractions and dualities that lead to more ignorance and unhappiness. But there is another way. You can choose the path to true soul success. If you begin right now, with my help, we can unburden you of your past and raise you to a new awareness of the joy that comes from pure love. The present moment has everything you'll ever need. Waste no time. Begin now. Meditate as I do, and give a new meaning to your life."

"I don't know..." Sam looked at his father, rolling his eyes and making his 'this-is-all-bologna' look.

"Don't look at him! He has no control here. And don't blame your untrained intuition for failing in the past..." Simon said, seeming to read his thoughts.

"...but seek ways to control the power that is yours so that your intuitive sight will improve."

"How do I know this will work?"

"Do you believe you and I are sitting here with your father now and talking?" Simon asked.

"Of course!"

"We are not. This picture is in your subconscious mind. Your father is already dead in your reality."

"How do you know that?"

"Don't be afraid. These things you see are pictures and movies of the mind. We must learn to see them as entertainment sent to teach us lessons."

"You mean he's not dead?"

"Your father is dead to this lifetime. His soul is here of his own will because he loves you," Simon offered this gently.

"I don't understand."

"Look at him. Don't see your father. See a perfect reflection of God in the creation of your father. Do not be distracted by your conscious memory of him."

"I can't; he hurt me too much."

"But why should the pain that he caused you blind you from seeing that God is reflected in him also?"

"I don't see God in him."

"Release him, Sam. Free him from your pain, and free yourself to begin a new life that sees God in everything."

Sam looked at his father, sitting quietly, not looking at him but instead looking far away. For the first time, Sam saw that his father was sad and filled with regrets. Sam knew then that he had the power to free his father or leave him forever trapped in the towering labyrinth of Sam's dark feelings toward him.

In taking the measure of his father, Sam could see he was not an all-powerful being but a man who taught Sam to fear him because he was afraid he could not control Sam otherwise. Sam could also see that his father spent his life preparing defenses for the day Sam might arise and destroy him. Now, his father could only wait for Sam's decision.

When he saw his father in this light, Sam felt compassion. His body heaved into itself, and all his muscles seemed to lack the will to stay together. Sam had wasted his life trying to prove to his father that he had the power his father already knew he had.

Then, his father turned to look at Sam. His eyes were imploring, allowing Sam to see inside the mush of his father's emotional life. He wanted Sam to let him go, opening himself to allow Sam to see his fears and weaknesses beyond their deep imprint on Sam's angry disposition.

Sam felt empathy for his father for the first time in their relationship. Slowly, Sam bowed with respect. When he raised his eyes again to look, his father smiled, and Sam found himself smiling in return. They gazed at each other only briefly before Sam felt that old and familiar, cold distance form between them again as his image slowly faded until he was gone.

27.The Cupula

Saturday, 1998-02-21, 1 AM, near HIENGHENE

"Sam, to succeed in your mission, you must cleanse yourself. If you are unprepared and the ring is activated, you will become frightened and feel you are losing your mind right before you become dark matter. Are you ready to begin?"

"Yes. Where do we start?"

"Always start with gratitude. You cannot succeed in this mission if your reasons are selfish. Then breathe. I will be with you at every step as we peel the onion. There is a lot of spiritual darkness to cleanse."

Sam heard Simon's voice guiding Sam deeper, allowing time for his breathing to set the pace of the dive down a winding staircase carved from stone. They moved forward with each breath until the way opened. He saw a panoramic vista overlooking a massive bowl-shaped recess in the earth about the size and shape of an upside-down cathedral dome. The place smelled of the now-familiar burnt sandalwood.

"This cupula is your Third Eye," Simon said.

As Sam circled the cupula, he felt deeply connected to the twisting sandalwood tree roots straining to pull him into their darkness. Judging by the smoke rising from the middle, the cupula had become a firepit.

"These roots block your cupula. We need to spend some time here cleaning this," Simon said.

"I wish this was not here."

"Just accept it, it's all okay, Sam. We need to go slow to go fast. Don't think about what you are supposed to do. Focus only on what is in your heart now."

"I feel the roots wanting me to take my place and never return. I don't know if I can do this," Sam said as he walked around the cupula's circular edge and surveyed the roots swirling and threatening from below. Above the cupula, a storm suddenly formed, bringing a lashing wind to resist his walking.

"Keep walking and focus slowly and gently without changing your pace. Eventually, these roots will tire out."

A single root snapped out to grab his leg. Sam panicked and kicked to shake it off. That brought the attention of another root. Together, the roots pulled him to the ground.

"Sam, they can only do this if you give them the energy to do it." Simon's voice was as calm and even as ever. "Breathe calmly and deeply. Focus on what you want, not what they want from you."

"I'm trying!" Sam felt as if he were struggling with his own raw emotions from the past.

"No try. Just do." This time, Simon spoke sharply. Sam felt Simon's will, but his tone was calm and determined.

"I can't; they are too strong! They're pulling me in!" He felt the forces that killed Moura, and the same ones he knew were inside Shelby, hungry to do the same thing to him.

"You are stronger, Sam. They are only as strong as you allow. Accept this truth."

Sam could sense the roots succeeding.

"Sam - Do you want to win this battle?"

"Yes!" speaking to Simon. Sam struggled to stand slowly, pausing as he stood to hold his ground, but the roots persisted with more strength.

"No!" speaking to the roots, he crouched, planted his feet on the diagonal corners of a slice in the cupula, and raised his fists to protect his face.

"Get back! Go away!" The roots initially seemed stunned. Then, they were meek and screaming as they retreated. As Sam continued walking, each step a firm planting, the roots continued to retreat as he approached.

"That's very good, Sam. Keep your focus. They are looking for an opening in our heart."

With each step, a blue-white circle of light formed around him. The screaming and wincing roots seemed to panic at the light's arrival. The wind became more fierce, throwing dead roots and ashes around him, making walking more difficult.

"Do not listen to them, Sam. Pray for them, give them to God, then release them."

Sam took the next step and felt his mother sobbing.

"I am hurting her."

"No, Sam. She wants you to believe that what you are doing is hurting her. But this is not the truth. The truth is that the lies she tells herself are hurting her, not you."

Another root came out and became a fist that threw a punch toward his face and arm. Sam ducked and blocked it just in time for it to hit his arm.

But this root persisted, seeming transformed for battle.

"No, Sam. This root believes he needs to protect your mother. He wants you to believe your actions are harming her. But this is not the truth. He is jealous. The truth is that his jealousy is part of his journey, not yours."

"He is so strong."

"No, he is not. But he wants you to believe he is. The time has come to show him the truth. You have always been stronger."

Sam had stopped walking. The protector root that Sam believed to be his father threw punch after punch, back and forth, as Sam ducked and weaved in response. Then, it reared upwards to join with another root, which became a large leather belt that slashed down to deliver a punishing blow.

Sam slowly dropped to his knees.

"Sam, you are giving him the strength to use it against you."

"He is strong all on his own!" Sam wanted to rise and fight.

"No, he is not. He is only doing this to make you feel small. But it is not the truth. The truth is that he fears your strength."

The second blow of the belt struck his back and abdomen, the same place as the first, igniting long-forgotten memories of anger and humiliation as his blood rushed to his head. Sam saw the root of his mother in the firepit, seeming satisfied that the unfolding drama met her expectations.

"Sam, you are where you need to be." Simon seemed to know that Sam wanted to run.

And then, from around the sandalwood firepit, visions of his ancestors emerged from deeper roots. He saw his father's parents, aunts, and uncles all long passed away. Behind and around them were other ancestors he had never met, but he sensed from their appearance that they were related to him. The circle of ancestors grew into a crowd as if called to this moment.

Above all the other roots, the root with the belt was held high in the air, poised for another blow.

Sam looked at Simon, but Simon was silent now.

"Stop this, now!"

A man's deep, thick, and husky voice came from the back of the roots crowded together. He was a large man, seeming to be in his mid-fifties, with bright red hair and a drab and dirty robe, appearing to be from long ago.

Instantly, the furious screaming sounds of a threatening storm calmed to a gentle, cool breeze. The other roots stopped their menacing and writhing. The root, which was a belt, flopped weakly to the ground. Sam noticed that even his mother became meek and withdrawn.

"Please forgive us." An older woman who seemed to be with the man had brownish-red hair resembling Sam's.

Sam stood slowly.

"We did not serve you well, Sam," the red-haired man spoke slowly and with the gravity of remorse. "We taught our children to do whatever they had to do to survive, to lie, never apologize, and always keep a poker face if it meant winning a contest."

"We wanted them to rise from poverty and live a healthy, strong life that would make us proud," the older woman with brownish-red hair said as she stepped forward. Sam could see that she had familiar angular facial features and brown eyes that reminded Sam that she was his ancestor.

"But we were wrong." She tapped the man's shoulder, and he nodded. The man took the gentle hint, stepped forward to stand beside her, smiled, and nodded.

"Now, we have been trapped here in this firey place," the man said, taking up the message. Their marriage seemed to be the kind of mature dance of give and take that couples develop after living long lives together.

"This place is our trial, not yours, Sam. We need forgiveness so we can move on," he said.

Sam looked around and saw bowed heads, some nodding, others averted their eyes. Sam could feel the shame, sadness, and even desperation coming from generations of abusers.

"Simon, what am I doing here? My grandmother would often tell us that God helps those who help themselves. Why don't they help themselves?"

"Did you not say you wanted to know God's love for us despite our failings?" When Simon spoke, all there listened intently.

"I did ask to know joy; that much is true," Sam said quietly, nodding.

"Then the work to save your eternal soul begins here and now. We need to unblock your Third Eye so you can see spiritually. Forgive them to save you."

Dark roots swirled inside the pit, occasionally rising like cobra snakes to stare at Sam and then returning to the roiling surface.

"Look at them - they are all so proud. What good is forgiveness? Most don't even want to be here now!"

"Each one is here of their own free will," Simon was looking at the crowd, many of whom nodded in agreement.

"They seem ready to win a fight."

"With God's help, no weapon formed against you shall prosper."

1. 1. 1. 19. ======

Sam's maternal grandmother, known and beloved by all as Nanna, stepped forward in the cupula to speak to Sam. Sam felt her generous empathy embracing him.

"We've been waiting for you. What took you so long?" Sam remembered her smiling and saying she was "just like the song," then singing "Five Foot Two and Eyes of Blue" as she danced a short bit of a Charleston.

"Now, we can get to work - so much to do. So go over there and wrap your arms around that big root." Nanna took him by the arm and guided him into the dark mess of the cupula.

"And I will hold this one." His bossy grandmother revived everyone working at the cupula, who seemed to know it was best to do as she said. Sam strode into the dark bowl-shaped pit of burned-out roots and approached the most prominent sandalwood root that had been thrashing him only moments ago. It reeled back and towered over him as he approached.

"Show it that you are the bigger one, Sam."

Even when it wrestled, Nanna embraced the other large root in her arms, which Sam believed to be his mother. Sam plunged headfirst over many writhing roots to grab and hug the base of the other root, which he felt was his father preparing to strike again.

"That's it, now do not let go. Hold your ground. No matter how hard it resists, you become stronger. Remember, it only survives by killing another. Your best hope is to become a bigger person, so you are too big to eat."

"He is powerful."

"You are stronger. God does not give us more than we can handle. Remember that. You can do this -- you are ready, Sam." At that point, the root she was holding lunged toward Sam. But in a flash, Nanna became a tall singularity, a pillar of light with no bottom and no top, showing her strength.

"Sam, now you."

The harder he hugged the root, the size of a large Sandalwood tree trunk, the more it resisted. Then Sam remembered how he felt surrounded by the choir of Sandalwood People in New Caledonia.

"Shhhhh," Sam said. "It's okay. It's going to be all right. I still love you."

The root Sam was holding stopped struggling.

"That's it. You're okay. Easy."

Then, the root became the boy version of his father when his father was young and vulnerable, then known as Willie. His brown eyes widened, and he seemed shy and almost helpless. Sam knelt to hold his shoulders and then drew him into a hug.

"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" Sam asked.

Willie smiled. Then Willie went to Nanna, who was still holding her struggling root. Willie placed his hand on that root, and it immediately stopped struggling, so Nanna stepped back.

Willie hugged that root, which became Sam's mother when she was young, then known as Allie. The other roots opened a path for Willie and Allie to approach Sam and embrace him.

"Thank you, Sam." They appeared to want to linger, preparing to say something.

"Say your goodbyes, kids," Nanna spoke with the authority of someone who loved them and had always looked out for them.

Willie and Allie left the cupula to stand with the nearby crowd of ancestors, not gone but no longer a threat.

======

"This is good, Sam, but we have more work." Nanna's tone was akin to a drill sergeant, reminding Sam of when she arrived to babysit the children for a weekend only to turn her visit into a manic cleaning marathon.

"Now go over here. Take this root by the end there and pull it hard," and Sam did as she said.

"We need to get all these roots out of this pit. Put that one over there, outside the bowl. Once they are beyond this bowl, they will leave on their own. We need to set them free."

"How did they all get here?"

"That's not important anymore. There are many reasons, and you don't need to know them. All you need to know is that we can help set them free, then clean this place once and for all time, so none of this can return to hurt you, or anyone you care about, ever again."

"Real people sure are messy."

"All we can do is forgive and love them, Sam. Now let's get to work."

Nanna had somehow managed a wheelbarrow, a lot of rope, a hammer, and many stakes. With her help, they placed 24 stakes all around the cupula. Then, one by one, they wrangled each root using a combination of ropes around the stakes, sometimes wrestling and hugging each one through the mud and soot to a place outside the firepit. Some roots were longer, so they took more time and struggle.

The work was challenging but rewarding. Each time a root cleared the pit, no matter how difficult, it transformed from a hostile, threatening force to a small child - one even became an infant. They would smile gently and peacefully, wave their hands, and disappear into the light around the bowl.

The work was exhausting because each root struggled with all its strength. Sam paused to take a break beside the circle.

Saturday, 1998-02-22, 5 AM, near HIENGHENE

"Time to up your game," Nanna said in her take-charge tone. Sam groaned inside, but she was the boss for now.

"Now we have to scrub it down," she said, dropping a large bucket beside him. "Fill that with warm tap water, add enough dish soap to get suds, add a little lemon juice, and bring it back. And hurry up; we've only just started." Her hands were on her hips, and she was smiling, but Sam knew she meant business and respected hard work.

It did not seem odd anymore that a spigot appeared a short walk from the firepit. "Of course," Sam thought. He was becoming so accustomed to life at the cupula that an endless supply of lukewarm water, soap, and lemon juice in a bottle seemed like an everyday occurrence.

He returned with the bucket.

"Start here," his grandmother pointed to the stake at the Midnight position of the cupula. "There are twelve triangular-shaped pieces of the pit at each hour position - like pieces of a pie. Going clockwise, clean one piece at a time. As you clean, say this prayer: 'Clean me, cleanse me, heal me, set me free.' Do not move to the next stake until you have each piece cleared first."

"Sounds simple enough," Sam thought. He took the bucket to the stake, knelt, and cleaned. He caught glimpses of gold and clear light underneath, but the residue of soot, mud, and grey dust resisted most of his cleaning efforts.

"Start over. This time, pray like you mean it," Nanna insisted.

"I do mean it. I never want to come back here to do this again. I mean it!"

"Good. This time, more elbow grease," Nanna showed him a few times.

Sam started making circles with the cleaning brush, bearing down while reciting the prayer in time with his motions. As he developed a rhythm, he saw a light shine through the slice outside the cupula.

"What is this? I can see stars! The whole universe! All sorts of colors - hey, this is cool!"

Sam looked around and saw he was alone. Nanna had left him to the daunting task, but he wanted to see more of what was under the grime. As Sam cleared away more while in prayer, streaks of gold appeared. The gold lines seemed to form symbols, but it wasn't easy to tell from what little he had cleared.

Sam became eager to learn more and started cleaning the center of the firepit in circular motions, expanding his cleaning in an outward spiral from the center.

But when he returned to the bucket of water to restart cleaning, the water was so dirty and cold that he had to leave the firepit for a refresher. As soon as he ventured out of the upside-down cupula into any area, by any path, more roots started to appear, seeming to wait until the right moment to undo any cleaning he had done. Something or someone was continuously covering the firepit again with roots, soot, mud, and grime.

"Argggh! What's the point of cleaning this?"

"It's okay, Sam. You can start over." Simon was standing at the center of the firepit.

"But this time, you must trust those who helped you get here. We will protect your work from outside the circle. But we cannot protect you if you insist on doing this your way."

"I don't understand."

"This firepit is a cupula, an upside-down dome. On the other side of this cupula is the light that is you, as seen by the universe. The roots of many generations have blocked you from seeing that light. There are forces beyond your understanding that fear the light you might bring to the world. But now it is time to end all that, and only you can do this."

"They are so angry."

"Your love is stronger, and you have more love to give. But you need to believe that and trust yourself with all your heart. Swallow your pride this time and try again."

This time, Sam started at the top and again cleaned the cupula between midnight and one o'clock, focusing on the prayer. When the roots tried to multiply this time, he resisted their efforts to distract him and kept scrubbing.

It seemed like hours had passed before Sam had one slice cleared. But it was worth it. A view of the universe filled the slice, and the gold lines were now clearly marking the edges of one triangular piece inside a cupola pointing out into the universe. What also emerged was a thick band of gold on the outer boundary of the slice, which seemed to add protection from future root growth because no roots regrew into that slice.

Sunday, 1998-02-23, 5 AM, near HIENGHENE

Sam was beginning to lose track of his place in spacetime. Sam quietly left his place on a large stone near Simon's meditation. He went to Simon's trailer nearby, where he was surprised to learn from the small clock that almost a full day had passed since he arrived at the river. He relieved himself and drank two glasses of water. For some reason, Sam was not hungry. When Sam returned, Simon was still meditating, earning a new respect from Sam for Simon's determination and endurance.

Sam rejoined Simon in meditation and soon returned to the cupula to focus on cleaning the second slice. The grime resisted cleaning and remained no matter how hard he scrubbed.

"Those prayers you are saying are not yours, and you don't believe them so that they will have no meaning here." The voice was no stranger to him; it was not Simon's or his grandmother's. It was his father.

"Maybe so." Sam focused on his scrubbing. His father was always willing to diminish Sam's accomplishments if he was jealous.

"These roots are here because you allow them to be here. You give them power because you believe they are all better than you. You believe that more than your prayers." And there it was. A guided belting shot by his autistic father, an expert in guided missile systems, at what his father knew to be a weakness.

"And whose fault is that? You ensured I felt imperfect and rejected by you and your ancestors long ago! Can you not see the damage you did?"

"You see, that's always been your problem -- anger. You get sensitive and lash out when you make even the smallest mistake." The second lecture-belting missile was predictable because the first thrash never satisfied his sadism. Talking back was not tolerated, so the thrashings would continue until there was no talking back.

"I accepted you," he thrashed a third time. "But you rejected yourself before I could get a word in," he thrashed again. And yet, Sam knew the barrage was not over.

"If there is anything to clean up now, you have nobody to blame but yourself." By this point in the thrashing, Sam had forgotten why he was being punished and was focused only on praying for the thrashing to end.

"If you thought you could go to your grave blaming all of us for all these roots here, think again." The final belting came when his father was too tired to continue, teaching Sam the only lesson Sam ever learned from the beltings - endurance.

"No! That's not the truth! You are here to make sure I believe you were right. No! No more gaslighting by your spiritually deaf, dumb, and blind self! Be gone from this place!"

The grit and grime under Sam were getting thicker as his anger grew, and roots appeared from the ground above the slice. The mud and grime seemed to be getting worse.

"Sam, we're not the problem. We never were. All of this is your responsibility."

The sounds of his father's alto saxophone solo in a swing band and the laughter of a room full of dancers filled the air with a juxtaposed display of power to reinforce the propaganda that Sam was the problem. Sam felt trapped, again, by the belief that he could not win. His father had, once again, outsmarted and outgunned him.

Roots emerged from the ground, multiplying to retake the emerging cupula with renewed ferocity. Sam felt that he had nowhere to turn, nowhere to run. As his anger grew, the roots sought to smother him in mud and grime.

He stopped scrubbing, dropped the brush, and fell on his outstretched arms, weeping as he surrendered to defeat. Far from cleaning the entire cupula, as he wanted, he was instead meeting his end in this grimy place. He waited to be drawn down by the roots to drown in their darkness.

"Lord, have mercy on my soul. Please forgive my anger as I forgive you."

Sam instantly felt the hands of many souls helping and supporting him, touching his shoulders.

In the prolonged silence that followed, Sam saw Simon standing at the dome's center, bathed in a blue-white light and atop the apex of a giant diamond surrounded by multicolored jewels. On either side of Simon were two older men in shimmering robes. All three were smiling.

"Perhaps this will help."

A new golden spigot appeared beneath Simon's feet. It was like the one Sam had been using, but it appeared more ornate, and a power sprayer was attached to it. It seemed a perfect gift and lovingly timed. Sam gently grasped the nozzle and aimed it at the grime and roots at the 1 o'clock slice.

"Breathe. Be the flow."

There was little movement at first, so he started praying again. Slowly at first, then with more force as his prayers grew in certainty, the overwhelming sound of the power sprayer began to drown out the saxophone music.

This time, generations of dirt disappeared almost instantly. Clear views of the universe beyond, long blocked by generations of unfinished business, emerged through each slice of the dome.

And while the water flow expanded the window into the universe, other souls appeared and formed a ring around the dome. These souls started digging a deep trench outside the cupula, this time with the help of heavy equipment and dump trucks that appeared from the darkness to haul away any excess dirt and roots far away from the ring. Other souls appeared with food and supplies and began building shelters for the growing crowd that had come to help.

"We are all hurt people, Sam. You are not alone," said Moura while serving food with Louya from behind one of the tables.

"We all need to forgive ourselves and the generations before us who harmed us," said Karl Lanquester while driving the heavy equipment to dig the trench.

"They each did the best they could," said his grandmother. "Now, all we can do is thank them, love them for the good they did, and release them."