Callahan's Place 09 - Callahan's Con (v5.0) (34 page)

An hour later, attendance exceeded one hundred percent, and everybody had been brought up to speed.
 
Every single one of my regulars was there, and some had brought along neighbors or new friends just in case more warm bodies might be useful.
 
And they’d managed to get there discreetly, without bringing a traveling riot along in their wake; the rest of Fantasy Fest proceeded out there, oblivious to anything but itself.
 
We had just over a hundred and twenty-five brains assembled in that compound, available for our neural bank.
 
Perhaps two dozen more than we’d had the last time.
 
But last time we’d had a less intractable problem to solve than this one…

Outside the compound: universal anarchic tomfoolery.
 
Inside the compound: quiet, calm purposefulness.
 
Outside: joy unrestrained.
 
Inside: muted fear, stoic endurance, cherished hope.
 
It kept reminding me of a time when I had spent New Year’s Eve in an Emergency Ward.

The house lights were on, at their lowest setting.
 
We spontaneously formed into a circle—actually a large ragged ellipse—all the way around the pool.
 
Nobody gave orders or stage directions, nobody seemed to feel like making a speech.
 
People adopted whatever posture they felt they could maintain without effort for a time—some sitting zazen, some reclining on lounge chairs, some lying on their backs looking up at the stars—took last sips or tokes and set down whatever they’d come from, and began to join hands.
 
Down at the deep end, Lex’s hands appeared above the water, and each was taken by somebody; he was new to this telepathy business, but game.
 
(Long-Drink said something about him being a game fish, and got splashed for it.)
 
Ralph von Wau Wau sat on Omar’s lap, touching paws with Alf on Maureen’s lap, and Pixel on mine.
 
Harry the Parrot, uncharacteristically subdued, perched on Double Bill’s shoulder, making him look more like a pirate than ever.

One person stood apart: Field Inspector Ludnyola Czrjghnczl, who had politely but firmly refused all invitations to join in.
 
She didn’t want to leave the compound, but she declined to join the circle, saying that it would be like a crack skydiving team making an important jump with a beginner who was terrified of heights.
 
We pressed her as much as politeness required, and then let it go: she was right.
 
Telepathy is not for the reluctant.
 
It’s scary enough as it is.

Erin sat beside me at the shallow end of the pool, seated on one of the tall chairs I use instead of barstools.
 
In front of her were two music stands, tilted back as far as they would go, with a laptop computer on each one: a Powerbook and a Dell.
 
She had a hand poised over each keyboard, and was physically connected to our human circuit by my hand on her right shoulder and Doc Webster’s on her left.
 
She was deep in final consultation with Doc and those nearest to him: Acayib,
 
Omar, Merry, Ben, Jaymie, Allen, Doug, Guy, Jim, Herb —every one of us who had ever worked at, played with or studied one or more of the hard sciences, especially math, astronomy, physics, biology or medicine.
 
(“Their heads are already formatted properly to process the data,” she’d told me.)

“We’re agreed then,” Acayib was saying.
 
“We’ll use the Cosmic Microwave Background
as if
it were an absolute reference frame for position in the observable universe.”

“Effectively it is,” Jaymie said.
 
“The CMB is isotropic to about one part in a hundred thousand.
 
We can see the reflex Doppler shifts due to the motions of the earth, the sun, the galaxy, the Local Group, and the Local Supercluster—”

“That should allow us to measure velocity deviation to a high degree of accuracy,” said Acayib.
 
“With a reliable predictive model of solar system and solar galactic orbit motions—”

Erin nodded.
 
“I was able to find those in Uncle Nikky’s toolbox.”

“—well, then, I think we have an excellent chance of extrapolating Zoey’s location.’

Jaymie nodded vigorously.
 
“With enough velocity data from the CMB, we should be able to factor in models of even galactic and supergalactic motions as well.”

“There’s something else crucial to consider, don’t forget,” Doug put in.
 
“When you materialize out there, your velocity amplitude and direction may well be different enough from your mother’s that there could be a very high kinetic energy difference.
 
You’ll want to try and predict that so you can compensate for it.”

I had a horrid mental picture of what he meant might happen.
 
Erin Transits with superb accuracy, pops into existence at just the right instant with Zoey only ten feet away.
 
Behind her, traveling away at a thousand miles a second.
 
Or there was an even funnier variation.
 
Do you know the true story about how, way back when there were only two automobiles in the entire town of Kansas City, they collided at an intersection?
 
Yeah, that would be hilarious…

“I wish I could examine that belt,” Acayib said.
 
“It may be that some measure of inertial compensation is built into it.”

“I’ve studied it,” I said.
 
“What would such a system look like?”

He shrugged helplessly.
 
“Anything—or nothing at all.”

“That’s what I remember seeing besides those two dials and the go-button,” I said.
 
“Nothing at all.”

“I still say,” Herb put in, “we’re neglecting the most important problem.
 
Let’s say we do our mind-meld thing and become God’s own wetware supercomputer and work this all out to so many decimal places that, miraculously, we can plop Erin down as close as half a mile to her mom, and let’s even assume we can match course and speed perfectly.
 
That still leaves us with the question of,
how the hell do you find a person in street clothes half a mile away in space
?
 
A great big flashlight?
 
Wait for them to occult a star?
 
I can see you teleporting a portable radar ahead of you, I even know where there’s a radar we could steal that’s probably in working condition—but humans show up
lousy
on radar.
 
Too soft.”

“An X-ray interferometer—” Acayib started to say.

“No,” Doug said.
 
“You want IR—”

“Excuse me, Doug,” said Erin, “but I’m going to table this.
 
No, you’re Canadian, aren’t you?—take if
off
the table, then.
 
Rule it out of order.
 
We’ll have to deal with that problem before I Transit—but we don’t have to solve it
now
.
 
First let’s see if it’s even possible to pin down the target.”

I was very pleased to know that people could form thoughts, construct sentences, create and follow logic chains, while Zoey was in danger, because if Zoey was in danger, those things certainly needed doing.
 
I could not seem to do any of them.
 
Maybe because I had nothing useful to contribute—except the use of the wetware in my skull.
 

Then I remembered something useful I could contribute.
 
Leadership.
 
Brains not required.
 
I took my hand out of Fast Eddie Costigan’s long enough to put my thumb and pinky in my mouth and give a New York cabdriver’s whistle.
 
Murmured conversations broke off everywhere, and my friends gave me their respectful attention.
 
That’s a heady drug; it helped to steady me down some.
 
I’m no Mike Callahan—as Jim Rockford once said, on my best day, I’m borderline—but I’d been playing him in the road company for over a decade now.
 
I was the best Mike Callahan we had around at the moment, and nobody I saw seemed to feel that I sucked.
 
I gave Eddie my hand again, and took a deep breath.

“Thank you all for coming here tonight,” I said.
 
“You know what we’re trying to accomplish.
 
Basically we want to build a big calculator out of brains, just like last time.
 
It’s a paradoxical situation.
 
We want to blesh our minds…but then
not
have a conversation.
 
We want as little thinking to take place as possible, really.
 
We want to touch and interpenetrate and enfold one another enough to provide support, stability—”

“—bliss—” Erin put in.

“—and bliss, yes, thank you Erin.
 
But this is not the time to swap life stories, or marvel at each other’s most intimate secrets, or compose poetry together.
 
In particular…”
 
I sighed.
 
“Look, I know this is gonna be difficult, okay?
 
Tell people not to think about something, and it’s hard for them to think about anything else, I
know
that.
 
We all know that.
 
Nevertheless, I have to ask those of you who were present for our last symphisis, or have heard about it, to please try and avoid thinking about
why we were doing it
.
 
This Erin, who sits here next to me, has not yet experienced those events—and they were so heroic, it would be a shame if she had to experience them as a deja vu.
 
She knows we saved the universe together, but not just how or even when, so let’s all try and leave it at that in our thoughts, if we can’t manage to leave it out of our thoughts altogether.”

“I’m not sure it matters that much, Daddy,” Erin said.
 
“I’ve already had a little experience living through events I knew in advance would happen.
 
It’s not terrible.”

“You didn’t mind the feeling of being trapped in clockwork predestination, losing your free will?”

“Well…some, yeah, sure.
 
That’s why I never peek if I can help it, now.
 
But there are worse things.
 
I don’t want to get this calculation wrong because some people are clamping down their mental sphincters to keep the Bad Memories from leaking out.
 
Alright, everybody?” she asked.
 
“What we’re looking for here is more like what the Zen Buddhists call no-thought.
 
The state where you’re not even aware that you’re not thinking about not thinking.
 
Those of you who are new to this…remember what John Lennon said: if you turn your mind off and float freely downstream,
it isn’t dying
.
   
Don’t be afraid.
 
We float together.”

Nobody said anything for ten seconds or so.

Finally I said, “We haven’t done this in ten years.
 
We haven’t got an experienced telepath to help us, but we didn’t have one the last time.
 
What we did have last time, and the other three times, was a life-and-death emergency.
 
Well, we have another one now.
 
Please…”
 
I stopped, gulped, got control.
 
“…please help us get Zoey back.”

Many voices were raised in the affirmative.

“Fast Eddie,” I said, “would you start the Om, please?”

“Sure ting, Jake.”

His hand tightened on mine.
 
He straightened a little on his piano stool, filled his chest and belly with air, and then began to empty them again:
 

“AAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM—”

We all jumped in after him.

*
 
*
 
*

I’m not trying to say Om’ing will make you and your loved ones telepathic, in and of itself.
 
Countless groups of people have chanted Om together since time began—thousands of them back in the Sixties alone—and I doubt many achieved telepathic symphisis, no matter how long they kept it up; if they did they kept it to themselves.
 
(Well, but then…they would, wouldn’t they?
 
We
had.)
 

I will say, though, that any group of people that does chant Om together will, if they all have a sincere desire to make it work, definitely end up more telepathic than they were when they started.
 
How much more?
 
Depends on the people.

All it is, really, is just the simplest possible activity that humans can share, and keep sharing.
 
Inhale deeply, use the syllable AOM to empty your lungs, and repeat.
 
Nothing else to it at all.
 
No prayers, no prescribed methods.
 
Generally everyone holds the same note, in whatever octave they’re comfortable with—but in our group if anyone feels moved to pick the dominant harmony instead, or to jam around the central drone a little like a sitar or a mohan veena, that’s cool too.

It doesn’t matter whether your language uses clicks, grunts, glottal stops, whistles or tones: any human mouth can make an “o” and an “m”—open mouth/closed mouth—and oscillate back and forth between them in a drone.
 
Even the profoundly tone-deaf can usually pick
some
note and stick with it fairly closely—if there are enough people in the Om, the odd sour note actually enhances it, gives the overall sound a sort of shimmy, that seems to resonate directly with something in the human central nervous system.
 
Each participant has to fall silent briefly while taking in the next breath, so the sound is always changing, but everyone does so at a different moment, so the sound is always constant.
 
Any monkey will find sustained deep rhythmic breathing to be hypnotic, calming, centering, relaxing…and at the same time energizing.
 
In a large group the effect can be enhanced exponentially.