CHAPTER SEVEN
They covered a lot of ground quickly in the land vehicle. They were headed towards the mountains, the range East of Communion and the North Forest. Eve seemed purpose-driven and determined as she directed his path, but she would not yet reveal to him what lay amidst those mysterious-looking, looming, rocky slopes. Here the soil was yellow with sulfur, and the air had a particularly pungent odor to it. Along a river whose waters were so clear that it looked like liquid glass, they scaled the miles that would lead them to the foot of a small, rocky peak as wind whipped through their hair and batted against their faces.
"Over here," she said when they had stopped, and dismounted the vehicle.
"Where are we going?"
"This way. There are still some of us who are unimprisoned by man, and they live in these caves."
Anthony turned off the hydro-powered engine. "According to my studies, it was believed that every inch of this small planet had been explored, and Communion was the only gathering of Novacadians in existence."
She smiled, and it was the first time he had ever seen a Novacadian smile. "Their explorations were not comprehensive enough. Some of us got away."
She led them to the mouth of the largest of the three dark caves that looked like the eyes of a skeleton. Gigantic ferns partially covered its entrance, and as they went in, they pushed past the soft green leaves and ducked their heads underneath the thick, fibrous veins.
It smelled dank and moldy, but it was a preferable smell to the sulphur of outside. Everything was dark. But as Eve led him further and further into the darkness, he did not feel fear. After a few minutes of walking, when the walls of the cave constricted and the ceiling became lower, Anthony thought he saw a soft, glowing light. As they got closer to it, there was no mistaking it: up ahead lay a flickering, amber glow that grew brighter as he watched.
And then the music. It was melodious, soft; a combination of breathy altos and humming baritones singing sweetly amidst a kind of wind instrument that Anthony could not identify.
As they entered the massive room with high ceilings and a broad expanse, Anthony heard the sound of a multitude of cheers of joy erupting all around.
It was a huge room. It reminded Anthony of a cathedral, with its high walls and monstrous stalactites hanging like buttresses from the stony ceiling. Packed in like a congregation on Easter Sunday were the people. Sitting and standing in clusters of a dozen or more, they filled the cavern in all of its corners and niches. Upon their entrance, groups of Novacadians jumped up from their seats and ran to embrace Eve. Anthony could only stand back to watch as an older woman appeared and placed a wreath of flowers over Eve's head. One by one, they approached and led her by the hand, proceededing to dance with her, draping garlands around her neck and clothing her in expensive-looking cloaks.
The Novacadians were everywhere. They looked just as poor as the ones in Communion, with torn clothing and dirty faces, but they all gave up their nicest garments to place them upon Eve, who strode amongst them and danced with both the women and men.
She was easily the most beautiful woman in the cave of at least a hundred occupants. She walked and even danced with dignity and valor, and had a fire in her eye that was unmatched even by all the human women that Anthony had ever seen before.
He looked all around for the source of the heavenly music, but instead found everyone in the room of the cave in a state of rejoicing. The voices, he figured, had come from his mind. But the instrument? Where was that? He could not find it anywhere.
He found himself hovering against the wall, simply watching the festivities. Obviously, they held Eve in high esteem. He watched as they took off the garland of flowers and placed a gold crown on her head, then urged her to have a seat at the back of the monstrous cave. He had never seen anything like it.
Then, when he was completely taken off guard, a young girl grasped him by the hand and led him through the dancing crowd of people and up, beside Eve, they told him to have seat.
An old woman approached them and said, "He can hear us because of the bond between the two of you, Eve."
Several people put garlands around his neck. "What does that mean?" he said to her.
Eve nodded. "I have not explained it to him yet," she said.
"The bond?"
"It means," she said, turning her head, "that there is love between us. Otherwise you would not be able to hear my voice, and you would not be able to hear the voices of all these people."
Anthony looked at her. "Am I the first human ever to hear a Novacadian voice?"
The look in her eyes was suddenly fierce and serious. "Yes, Anthony."
The weight of this knowledge sank in like an anchor sinking to the floor of the sea. "But I have to help you," he blurted. "Earth thinks you have no means of communication, and that's why they're inserting computer chips into your brains. They consider you a threat so long as you appear intelligent and don't communicate. I have to tell them that you do communicate, just not in the ways that they had thought."
"No," she said emphatically. "You must not do that. You will be endangering yourself."
"But how?"
She did not answer.
"They brutalize you," he said. "They keep you prisoners in your own homes. If I tell them that you use telepathy, then perhaps they will leave you alone."
"That's not how it will happen," she said. "They will only continue with their experiments, and if they learn that you can hear us, they will use you for their purposes."
"They won't insert a communication chip into my brain."
"I know that, but--"
"But what?"
She had an old, weathered look about her just then. "You would be vulnerable, like we are, if they use you."
He was frustrated. "What do you mean?"
Just then the music started up again. The voices were so beautiful that despite how desperately Anthony wanted to get more information out of Eve, he could not help but sit back to listen to it.
Mouths unmoving, a chorus of men and women sang songs that could never have been created on Earth. Again, he heard the wind instrument, but it was nowhere in sight.
"What is that wind instrument?" he asked.
"It is part of their collective mind energy. They created it," she said.
The words were strange, and sad. They sounded like prayers. Anthony realized that they were praying about Eve, but their words were spoken so quickly that he did not understand them.
"What are they praying about?" he asked, whispering to Eve.
Her tone was solemn. "They are praying for the prophecies to come to pass."
"What prophecies?"
She turned to him. "That I die a brutal death in order to save the entirety of my race."
Anthony stared at her, not even gasping. He looked at her, with her pale, frail limbs and now uncertain posture, her big, sorrowful eyes, and her hair so long and pale and wavy that at first glance one would think it to be artificial. This was not a girl who was supposed to die. She was a princess. She deserved all the riches and affections that these people were giving her and more, but not because she was supposed to die a horrible death in order to free them.
When he finally found his voice, he said, "Are you their...messiah, then?"
"If you mean the one who will set them free, then yes."
His mind inevitably locked onto his Catholic upbringing. "You know, on Earth, many of us consider than a man named Jesus Christ was the messiah."
She folded her hands in her lap. "Every planet has their own messiah," she said. "Jesus Christ may be yours, but here my people are still undelivered."
"Tell me," Anthony said. "Do you think you are the messiah? Or is this just what other have been telling you?"
"The prophecies say that it is so. In the past, they were never wrong."
Coming from a human (or even another Novacadian, he came to realize), the statement would have come as a show of pride or as a delusion of grandeur. But the innocense with which she put forth her belief and the silent passion with which she seemed to feel it left Anthony dumbfounded and with a feeling of incredulity. Her humble acceptance of the prophecies did impress him, but nevertheless he got the sense that she was more like a child accepting the existence of the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus.
Eve's acceptance of the prophecies did not disturb him. What disturbed him, however, was the attitudes of the other Novacadians in the cave. How could they, if it really were to happen, let her die?
Anthony thought about his meager upbringing and knowledge of the Christian faith. Jesus, he knew, died a horrible death, but it wasn't as though his followers were rejoicing in his pain, was it? They weren't pushing him to the cross, were they?
He stopped himself. He knew this tiny creature that sat beside him so delicately and with a look of pure innocence with her rose-petal lips was not a messiah. The Novacadians were a peaceful race, but if there was any indication of their having a dark side, this was it. He felt overwhelmingly in that instant that they were taking advantage of her, stringing her along and using her for their means, and she, in pure faith, was buying into it. He suddenly felt the overpowering desire to protect her by any means necessary, only he realized, who from?
Years before humans had ever had the ability to explore habitable new worlds, they had dreamed about scientific experimentation on aliens. If only they then knew that their flights of fancy would come to pass, and in a vulgar way, perhaps a kind soul would have put a stop to the hostile depictions of alien life and portrayed them as friendly and cooperative instead.
"Eve, can't you try to speak to the men and women at camp? They've got to know that their experimentations are hurting you." His lips were the only ones moving in the entire massive room.
"We cannot," she said simply.
"Are you planning on retaliation?"
Even though she sat still, he face was white and soft. "That is not our nature." She looked away.
"But?"
"But something will happen if your men continue to hurt us."
"You will fight back?"
"If my people are drawn into your hatred, the sickness will take hold of their hearts, and horrible things could happen."
Anthony sat back in his seat. "What does that mean?"
Eve stood up and closed her eyes. "Watch," she telepathed to him. He heard a low rumbling that sounded like an avalanche or a steam-roller charging through the echoing walls of the cave. Thinking that there was a great earthquake, he braced himself. But suddenly, the cave that had been filled with the warm, yellow light of several torches became filled with an even brighter, more distilled light. A fresh, cool breeze blew by his face, rustling his loose clothing and sandy hair, and all at once he felt the sensation of being lifted up, sailed through the air. Above him, the ceiling of the cave opened up and he could see the blazing orbs of two suns shining down upon them as well as the spine-like tops of some forest trees. Anthony's breath was taken away.
"How did you do that?" he asked, trembling.
Eve slowly opened her eyes, her pale skin now touched with pink. When she sat down, her internalized voice was calm. "There are many other things we can do," she said plainly.
Anthony tried to regain his composure. "You mean...you did that...with your mind?"
"Mind energy is very powerful," she said. "When you concentrate your thoughts with purity, you can accomplish most things."
Anthony realized he had shrunken away from her. "Then why don't you use your mind energy to escape from the astronauts?"
She opened her mouth slightly, but of course no sound came out. "They have weakened us, Anthony. They have weakened us to the point where we don't know how to defend ourselves unless it is out of hatred. But if my people all succumb to the powers of hatred, we will all die. The only thing that can save us now is love."
He was piecing it together. "So this retaliation you spoke of...does it have to do with the mind energy?"
Her face looked pained. "We cannot do anything with our minds that is not ruled by our hearts," she said. "Therefore, if Love is our master then we cannot fight back against your men. But if Hatred becomes our master, then we will be able to fight with our minds against you before the flicker of our consciousness goes out. We gain immediate freedom, but at the price of eternal imprisonment."
"We are just men," Anthony said, opening his palms.
Eve looked at him. "And we are just Novacadians."
And there was love between the two of them. But how could that be? He had only just set eyes upon her for the first time a few hours ago. But deep within, he knew that there was some truth to it. He felt a kinship with her already that should have been unnatural, but felt perfectly normal and comfortable and as though it had been planned for a long time. There was a common link between the two of them, but he was yet to discover it, he knew.
He thought, suddenly and strangely, of Kate. Kate with her bright brown eyes, her raw laugh, and her overly forgiving nature. The time when he'd been with her he was a different person, more open and free, less withdrawn, less suspicious of everything and everyone.
"I know what you are thinking about," Eve said gently.
"Look," he said. "I know that you all are in a lot of trouble, and I'd like to help you. I'd like to do anything I can." His mind flashed back to the dream in which Eve told him that only he could save them.
"I am the messiah," she said, "not you."
"Then why did you ask for my help?"
She looked troubled. "When?"
"In my dream."
She paused for a very long time. "When did you receive this dream?"
"Right before we left to come here."
She looked frightened then. "It was not me," she said. "I never spoke to you in a dream." She moved her head from side to side. "I would have known had I tried to communicate with you in such a way."
Anthony was confused. He took her hand. "Why are you frightened?"
She shook her head. "I am not."