Jumping Read online

  I find this incredible, but I decide to believe him.

  He notes my momentary struggle with disbelief, says, “Even UFO activity!” and laughs. “After all, we all come from the stars anyway. By my reckoning, I think we're now somewhere under the Carpathian Arch.” I look at him questioningly, and he says, “I think it's Romania nowadays. Borders have been moved a lot, what with all the wars and political dealings, but don't get me started on the uselessness of borders—or wars!” He laughs again, shaking his head.

  “This one,” he gestures to what I now think of as my tunnel, “connects Romania to Egypt and on to Tibet. Afghanistan is connected to it, too, and Russia. You have no idea. There's so much more that you don't know than you do, while you're on Earth. Oh, there are those who do know, but they still believe that power resides in secrets, so they're keeping them.

  “Funny, when we're on Earth we don't fear these secret keepers—we trust them with our money, we elect them to high office, we allow them dominion over our children—but we do fear the extraterrestrials, even though many of them have given us nothing but help. True, some don't have such altruistic motives, but I think we're usually capable of telling the difference.”

  He sees my question and says, “Oh yes, extraterrestrials showed us how to make homes underground and above, how to grow things and manage resources, such as water and minerals and energy and our own health.” He hands me my thermos cup of tea and puts the toast in my other hand.

  “They've offered us service, and were often our first examples of that.”

  I'm drinking my tea, eating my toast and feeling better for it, mentally zoning out for the moment, as I do when I'm overwhelmed by incoming information. I look up to ask Guy another question and notice, seemingly out of nowhere, a great horned owl sitting opposite me, near Lynette. It startles me, and I start to scoot back, away from the fire. Lynette laughs and says, “He's here for you, you know.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, thinking of all the old Native American stories connecting owls with death.

  “A little too Harry-Potterish for you?” she asks playfully. “He's got a bond with you, too. He's your totem. He's why you have an owl calendar in your kitchen and why Reggie gave you that little owl fetish you still carry. He comes to help you in that way animals do, showing you your connection to the natural forces as your guides. He keeps you close to the outdoors, where you find renewal. He's part of why you haven't given up. His name is Anai, but he can tell you that himself.”

  I'm not surprised there are animals down here. I just didn't know any of them might be for me. I give a little bow to the owl, who gives a friendly bow of his head back. His eyes, with their nictitating membrane moving up and down, seem to have a life of their own, so I can't be sure where he's looking, and he swivels his head around in a way that seems impossible. But he's incredibly beautiful, feathers gleaming in the firelight, eyes an intense highlighter yellow, completely self-possessed as he fluffs his feathers and settles into his spot. He makes contented little chirps. He's come to listen, too.

  “This is a good time for me to tell my story,” says the other man, who is medium height and build, his features suggesting Southeast Asia. He looks at me across the fire, his beautiful black eyes and hair gleaming in its light, as I sip my tea. “My name is Uche,” he says with a kind smile, “and you and I have been together in many lives, too—husband and wife, mother and child, and so forth.” He smiles again as he feels my question about our apparent outward differences.

  “Sometimes this color, sometimes another—colors have their own lessons but are ultimately meaningless,” he answers. “We all have ‘a bond stronger than life,’ as we like to say. My story involves you and me and a few others, who aren't with us tonight, it's one of my favorites.

  “We were together on Atlantis. We lived in one of its larger cities and were considered fairly prosperous. We were friends and co-workers, and raised our children together. We were engaged in what we liked to call the ‘health and hygiene’ of the government-regulated work force who made up the industrial and technical workers of Atlantis. We were responsible for those who provided essential maintenance of the giant crystals that provided our energy, as well as the workers assigned to the production of food and necessary other goods. We determined and managed their births, their work, their family planning, their disputes, their deaths. Nothing happened to them that we didn't know about, and many of their children shared our birthdays and carried our names. We knew they were not as us and never would be, because we had controlled their genetic development. No more than one-sixth of our genetic materials had been introduced into their own original animal materials, to create useful intelligence without enabling a move to dominance. This was part of a huge intergalactic experiment to create a super slave race that would ensure the protection of necessary resources for the continuation of the intergalactic races. We believed the project was a success and we had created the most productive, efficient, cooperative slaves possible.

  “This is why Atlantis accomplished much in the areas of transportation, energy transference, transmutation of metals, and so forth. At its peak, it had millions of citizens, and we needed a trained and focused population of workers we could depend on to keep it all going and progressing. We did our jobs and did them well, and expected these workers to do the same.

  “Yes, you might call them ‘slaves,’ but we didn't. We thought of them as a vital working population in partnership with us for shared progress. We treated them well—they didn't want for food or shelter or medical attention; they weren't over-worked, in fact they even got holidays. We took care of them. We thought of ourselves as good people, by the standards of our time. We did not think of ourselves as ‘bad’ people. But of course we were. By any proper definition that included depriving someone else of their right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness, we were ‘bad’ indeed.

  “Oh, our job had some concern with ‘health and hygiene,’ but it was mainly involved with suppressing and sterilizing the workers, so we could control and limit their activities and reproduction for our own purposes. Their existence made ours possible.

  “We couldn't have them producing either too many or not enough children, or getting too many other ideas of their own. Sterilization and genetic work allowed us to control and maintain sex, size, and docility, along with their reproductive capacity. We were trying to clean up some genetic damage, too, from earlier extraterrestrial races that had engaged in experimentation to create the slaves on Earth to begin with. Of course we had to engage in some experimentation as well, in the beginning, though we felt we handled that pretty responsibly, disposing of the less successful results discreetly.

  One night—you may remember this—we had gone together to a closed session called by our highest government officials for those of us who oversee the slaves. This was unusual and quite hush-hush. We knew something serious must have happened and we were curious. We went to the Auditorium of the Crystals and watched as the ruling council filed in from a side door onto the stage. All twelve members of our ruling council were present and sat at a raised table in front of us. They took turns speaking, beginning with the most senior member.

  What we heard stunned us. Not only did our leaders think the experiment had not been a success, they believed it should be terminated, the current generation of slaves liquidated, including their children. Measures were already being taken to ensure future generations were without the fatal flaw that doomed the current slaves.

  They said our earlier efforts were to be commended but now our cooperation was needed—it would require the best efforts of all of us—to begin to remove the slave populations from each of the major cities. Step one would be their emigration to the uninhabited territory in the east, avoiding any resistance or insurrection.

  “What has happened?” one of our co-workers asked in alarm. “We're stunned by this news!”

  “In our zeal to make sure they were educable, for the more complex technica
l tasks, we unknowingly encouraged chemical reactions within the endocrine system that led to a greater freedom of thought than we had intended.” They paused, looking at each other as if deciding how much to say. “They've discovered joy.”

  An audible gasp went through the audience. The worst case scenario.

  “We asked ourselves, what should be the solution to this terrible problem? There will be no containing it. They are intoxicated by it and want to experience it every day. They will want it for their children and grandchildren. We must put an end to it or it will put an end to us. It will inspire them to want to manage their own joy and we will be in their way.

  “We are not monsters. We know many of you have come to depend on your slaves, have even grown fond of them, as of your own children. But we ask that you don't waste your sympathy on them. Save it for our own blood. That will keep us strong. Don't ever waste it on anyone else in the world.”

  “What will happen to them?” someone called out.

  “Do you imagine there can be settlement villages for them? Where they could plan and make trouble for us? There is nothing we can do with them. Maybe the strongest can live on in the east, helping to cultivate the swamps, if we keep them isolated from each other. The majority must be eliminated.”

  “Eliminated?” a man called out. “Do you mean killed?”

  Another gasp.

  “Women and children, too?” There is a general unrest in the audience, a rumbling.

  “We are letting you know our thinking! It is not an easy solution, but we can retain our decency as we toughen our resolve. We have the moral right, the duty to future generations, to eliminate those who would eliminate us.”

  “But they've done nothing!” another woman cries out.

  “Might the discovery of joy not be a problem?” shouts a man.

  “The scientific evidence is clear. There is no doubt where this leads. We have seen it develop on other planets, leading to revolutions and coups. We must be proactive so we are not doomed to reaction, which is much bloodier and much harder to recover from. We will look back on this as a page of glory in our history of genetic progression. It is to be celebrated that we discovered this flaw that could have been fatal.”

  “But why women and children? They could be sterilized!”

  The leaders look at each other, and I thought this would not bode well for the woman who keeps asking this question.

  “First, we have to wipe out all trace of the defective genes. Second, our first loyalty must be to our own blood. That is what interests us. We cannot allow any possibility of plotting, rebellion, or sabotage, which they are knowledgeable enough to commit. The slaves interest us only in so far as we can use them. That is what they are for. Otherwise, they are of no interest. There is no place for sentiment. This is a natural necessity, of the highest order.”

  Those of us in the audience began talking to each other, mentioning specific slaves who have become essential to us, who should be exceptions. Some people are crying. Their slaves have become surrogate families and children to them. We know that some have had children with slaves, though it's against the law. We feel we do not have a concept of decency to encompass what is being asked of us. We are not machines. Just as I was wondering if the leaders had an insurrection on their hands with us that night, one of them spoke quite severely to us.

  “We are the ruling class! We cannot be weak on this. Our responsibility follows us through history into the future. We would be judged weaklings and criminals to our children if we allowed their children to grow up. There is no retreat from this. It is important we resolve it in our time. Future generations might not have the courage.”

  We are quiet for a moment, having interpreted correctly that more resistance should not be expressed there, that night, or we would be seen as siding with the slaves and perhaps suffer their fate.

  The most senior leader speaks again. “Humane methods of elimination are under discussion. We will convene another session to finalize these with you. The solution will occur in stages and will require your complete cooperation. Know that this solution is the final solution. There will be no further questions on it. There will be no further discussion on it, either here or amongst yourselves.”

  They leave the stage, our cue to leave the auditorium as well. We file out quietly, not looking at each other. We believe we have no option but to do as they say.

  We complied with their directives, right down to being part of the extermination teams in the east. You and I both heard of other's resistance, of people who hid their favored slaves until they could move them out to the far wilderness areas, of people who attempted to marry or adopt them, of people who set up underground settlements. Many of these people were caught and disappeared. We dared not ask about them.

  We left that life knowing two things, even before death. You cannot live without speaking out, even upon pain of death. You cannot live following someone else's directives for your life, even upon pain of death. Our lives lost meaning and purpose, and we lived without interest or joy. Those lessons are of utmost importance for all. Perhaps you can see why?”

  He looks at me, one eyebrow raised. I look back at him as something slowly climbs out of the murky depths of memory and a chill creeps like a snake up my body.

  “Hitler.”

  “You hear his language in the council's words. Many of those words appeared verbatim in Hitler's and Himmler's speeches, though they thought they were their own. Those words were the heritage of Atlantis, caught forever in the collective unconscious. Hitler attracted them like a magnet because he had the same intent—to remove an entire people by murder.

  “Atlantis' leadership council had as heritage the warmongering of their parent planet Mars, and their laws reflect that. The concept of slaves began with the garnering of many captives as the spoils of war. Atlantis profited from the large number of captives by engaging in medical experimentation to make them less trouble and more useful—a master slave race—enabling the Atlantean ruling class to create industries of slave labor. Then, when the slaves betrayed their masters by growing and developing abilities of their own, they were annihilated. Atlantis provided the universal model for successive tribes to initiate the same kind of genocide or ethnic cleansing. As even Hitler noted, it's a monumental task to eradicate a whole people. It takes the complicit cooperation of everyone to succeed. Support has to be handed over. And we handed it over.

  “We didn't question anything, and we didn't step up in aid of anything. We let it all happen. And that was our lesson. We didn't do there what we all had done as monks. It led to the downfall of Atlantis, and we were there when Atlantis sank. Many people died, much was lost, and all unnecessarily. I've never forgotten it. Maybe you haven't either.

  “Maybe we couldn't have done much on our own to change the situation. But anything we had done would have changed us, for the better. And that's our first responsibility, while on Earth. Stepping up is where inspiration begins, for all. We, and others, paid the price for not having done so.” He looks at me for a moment, and I look back, grateful for his telling of this story. I've always felt I had a connection to Atlantis.

  Everyone pauses a moment, staring into the fire. “But you called it one of your favorite lives,” I say.

  “Yes, I did,” Uche says, “and I meant it. I learned more about myself in that life than in several other lives combined. What I'll do to belong, to be liked, to succeed according to others' standards, to feel I have power and control; what I'll put first to achieve those things and what I'll put last. We were created from good. We go against our good nature at a great cost, to ourselves and others. We create ourselves and our lives down there through interwoven lifelines—by what we do and don't do, say and don't say. If we're not there for each other, other baser influences can take hold of us, determining our course. Atlanteans achieved what the wildest dreams of science could not have predicted, but they could not keep themselves, their communities, or their future safe and whole
.”

  He laughs ruefully and says, “There were lessons enough for everyone there!” “Lessons?” I ask. “Is that what it's all about?”

  “Yes. It's what we want a life to do—teach us. This is about advancing—it's everyone's goal. There's no growth in maintaining the status quo, just a kind of slow death for all.” He looks at me, and I look back, intently.

  “I thank you for the story,” I tell him. “The story of Atlantis has always haunted me.”

  “I hope to provide you peace,” he says, smiling.

  I bow to him and he bows back to me from across the fire. I mull over what he said about the cost of maintaining the status quo, thinking of my life now.

  We've come full circle to Guy, on my right. I look at him, and he dips his head at me in acknowledgment.

  “Are you wearing a spacesuit for any reason?” I ask him, looking at the white multi-zippered, baggy but belted jumpsuit.

  “I am,” he grins. “I just stepped out of a life for a moment, as you've done with your life. I'll step back in at the moment I left it, as you will. In that life, I'm part of a group traveling from Sirius to Camelius X, an Earth-like planet in a different galaxy. We'll face some of the same challenges the extraterrestrial groups who settled Earth did. Can we partner with the beings there rather than dominate? We've been so eager with our planetary experiments that we don't like waiting for a more democratic process with beings seemingly less advanced than we are.”

  “Why that life?”

  “Because I've killed people who got in my way. Oh, not in a while, but I wanted to be sure. Camelius X will be a test.”

  I look at the strength rippling in his hands as he stirs the fire. He seems formidable, and I'm a little afraid of him now. “And if you fail?”

  “I'll start again.” He looks at me and laughs, his teeth flashing brightly. “Do you wonder if I will kill you?” He laughs again. “Already did.”