Journey to Mandalam: Adventures in Consciousness: Mandalam Adventures, #1

By Richard Bradshaw

Jeremy has no idea what he's getting into when he stops at a small cafe in a little town in Oregon near the Pacific coast. But he decides to stay. After all, it seems like such a nice little town. Perhaps if he had gone outside and looked up into the night sky, he would've seen a starship from the planet Tandalar which was presently encountering an overpowering Presence while testing out a new space drive. Inside that ship lay several beings shattered by their experience, slowly picking themselves up from the floor of the craft.

Meanwhile… a middle-aged eccentric in the same small town in southern Oregon suddenly feels the need for some company to help explore a huge anomaly near the coast of Oregon. Before long, chance and serendipity bring five people and a group of star travelers together for adventures into other dimensions both inner and outer where they come into contact with various other beings, all in pursuit of their own unique destinies.

Adventures and insights abound around speculations on who they are, how they and the cosmos came to be, and why it chose them and not others to go through the travels and travails of time that unexpectedly wanders across differing dimensions of space and consciousness, both of which, it turns out can sometimes be manipulated.

In the end both star travelers and humans are transformed in various ways, solving old problems and opening up new horizons with the promise of further adventure, controversy and discovery. This is the first of (thus far) two books in this series. 376 pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Bradshaw
• Release date: Jun 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201151645

Richard Bradshaw

Richard E Bradshaw  PhD Born in the Mission District of San Francisco, Richard Bradshaw grew up in the high mountains of Colorado, spent sixteen years in Hawaii discovering experientially the meaning of multiculturalism, then lived in Japan for twenty-five years, teaching at universities and doing various kinds of cultural research in Japan and Southeast Asia. He has an M.A. in Asian comparative religion and a PhD in social psychology with an emphasis on cross- cultural studies.

Book preview

JourneyRevised

Journey to Mandalam

Adventures in Consciousness

Richard E. Bradshaw

3nd Edition

Copyright © 2012

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

From Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein; Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995.

Journey to Mandalam

Adventures in Consciousness

Table of Contents

The Beauty of Awareness

Prologue  A Searing Message

Chapter 1   The Making of Friends

Chapter 2   Thanksgiving with Clara

Chapter 3  The Joining of Friends

Chapter 4  All is Not What it Seems

Chapter 5  The Descent

Chapter 6  The Moss Forest

Chapter 7  Floating and Flying Are Hard to Do

Chapter 8  Chaos and Uncertainty

Chapter 9   The Problem with Humans

Chapter 10   Memory Is a Very Deep Thing

Chapter 11  The Crystal Sphere

Chapter 12   Jeremy’s Journey

Chapter 13  Beyond the Veil

Chapter 14  Call from a Distant World

Chapter 15  Tom in the Cavern Alone, or Not

Chapter 16  The Rise and Fall of Tom

Chapter 17  The Bwatami Council of Tandalar

Chapter 18  The Element of time

Chapter 19  Behind the Scenes

Chapter 20  The Nature of Reality

Chapter 21  The Muse and the Battle of Panta

Chapter 22  Remembrance

Chapter 23  Tolbert Lanker

Chapter 24  Consuela

Chapter 25  Jeremy’s Return

Chapter 26  Return of the Bwatami

Chapter 27  A Cross-Species Experience

Chapter 28  A Change of Plans

Chapter 29  Add One More, Ladu

Chapter 30  Reunion and Musings

Chapter 31  The Key Is Inside

Chapter 32  Clara and Higher Things

Chapter 33   Mirror Lake Revisited

Chapter 34   The Secrets of Transformation

Chapter 35   Hide and Seek

Chapter 36   Tolb Goes Out on His Own

Chapter 37   A Planet Resides in a Delicate Medium

Chapter 38   Riding the Will

Chapter 39  Ecstasy and Reality

Chapter 40  So Who Are We

Chapter 41   Truth is Creation

The Beauty of Awareness

Living in various cultural and temporal realities over time

Transforms a being in ways hard to define

And since change within is happening habitually

It’s hard to monitor and so hard to see

We’re forever left wondering who we might be

Or even who we were, in actuality

But from all that experience what a being knows

Moment by moment slowly grows

And gently accumulates into something sublime

That leads us onward toward a quiet mind

An open window

One-pointed focus our guidance

To see through the silence

Into the depths

From where a subtle bliss flows

From the crown of one’s head down to the toes

And thence from there into insight and prose

So ride joyfully you who are that inner light

Across waves of experience, through time and mind

And take down in different ways and different rhyme

The Message

That all who travel down this road

Are from the same fold

Born of the same mold

Light of the sublime

Traveling in space and time

mandal_map4print

The truth is beyond any belief system

The truth exists only in pure experience, right here and now

And as your ability to go beyond your belief systems

And be right here, right now increases

So will your ability to perceive the truth

Prologue

A Searing Message

Ladu stood in front of the view screen watching suns and their offspring approach with maddening speed and then disappear in a white haze of stellar material behind them.

Ensconced in its space-time bubble his ship had been pulsing gravity waves behind it for fourteen light cycles now, slicing effortlessly through ‘local’ space-time far faster than light could ever dream of traveling.

It’s performing well, he said to his second-in-command.

Ten times as fast as the last model, said Gantal, and smooth as Tandalar ice.

Turn her nose home, said Ladu.

Gantal touched a few lights on the simple panel in front of them and the ship was heading in a new direction. Not that the seven beings inside felt the age-old stomach-churning rush of fast turns. Being inside one’s own space-time bubble disallowed any laws of inertia.

As they headed back to Tandalar, Ladu and his six crew members relaxed into Union, passively merging their minds into one, a mass sharing of experience bringing new insights and a deeper understanding to all.

As they lay there, open to each other and the universe, something huge and alien suddenly entered them; a Presence that scoured them with an overpowering ecstasy that felt like delicate fire inside their minds and bodies. As their bodies writhed, incredible insights filled their minds, answering questions that had plagued the Bwatami for millennia, inside Union and out. Then the Presence was gone, taking with it the insights, and leaving only the dying embers of ecstatic pain in the large, now tortured eyes staring out at each other in fear and confusion.

Gantal reached out with a shaking hand and slammed the ship’s drive into reverse and then silence. As the boundaries around their space-time bubble dissipated, distant light from a surrounding universe once again entered all the ship’s portholes. The nearby vastness was broken only by a single star, a minute brilliance with tiny lights positioned around it.

Head for it, said Ladu tersely.

They approached the system cautiously and spent the next seven watches pointing their finely tuned instruments at each of the planets in turn. Only one, the third from the star, had any kind of civilization, and the level of that seemed far beneath being able to produce whatever had overwhelmed them as they passed by.

They were on the verge of giving up when their sensitive instruments uncovered an energy anomaly under the surface of the planet, an anomaly that suggested a technology far more advanced than anything the civilization on the surface had to offer.

This has got to be it, said Gantal, there’s nothing else here.

Do we investigate? Ladu asked his crew members.

Six pairs of haunted eyes looked back into his, but one by one, they raised their chins in acceptance. Minutes later, and filled with trepidation, they made for the surface of the third planet from the sun, in hope of finding the source of an experience their race had long sought and dreamed after.

Guide yourself through daily life with dignity and grace

For in truth, that is your natural state

And the one in which you will feel most comfortable

Chapter 1

The Making of Friends

Tom Barnic stood in the middle of his living room for a full minute, deep in thought before dropping his pack on the floor and shuffling into the bathroom where he stood under the shower for half an hour. Afterward, putting on some clean clothes for the first time in many days, he walked out the back door and sat down in the swing that had graced the back porch for so many years. He looked out into the small yard that slowly blended into a dense forest forming the underbelly of the Oregon Coastal Range rising distantly into the sky. He sat there thinking a long time about his explorations and discovery, and the fact that the whole thing was getting to big for him. As he slowly rocked back and forth, he came to a reluctant decision which nevertheless eased his mind considerably. Then he slowly got up, walked into the house and into the bedroom, where he collapsed on his bed, and slept for nine hours.

* * *

A few hundred meters away, at the edge of a small town where a few lights still shone, the driver of a late model car dropped Jeremy off in front of a small café, and then drove off again, red taillights floating silently into the distance. A cold wind blew remnants of golden-brown leaves around Jeremy’s feet as he walked up the sidewalk to the brightly lit entrance. Through scrubbed windows a small sign spoke of crisis inside, Fry cook wanted, which he barely noticed as he entered and sat down at the short counter. He had been on the road since six this morning, thumbing his way through almost two hundred kilometers, taking each ride as far as he could, as long as it was heading in a generally south-western direction.

Tired and hungry, he had the quick and cheap! café special, and then headed for an equally cheap hotel the café owner had told him about. The next morning, he headed back to the same café for breakfast, saw the sign in the window for the second time, and on a whim, took the job. After all, working in a warm restaurant for the winter months was much better than standing on the road with his thumb out, half-freezing, and even he could cook better than who or whatever had scrapped together his dinner the previous evening.

This is the way he liked to do things. All his young life he had been the hard-working responsible kid helping make the family ranch a success, while most of his boyhood friends had been out running wild. Now fresh out of college, he had convinced his parents he needed to just roam for a while, see a little of the world before taking over the family ranch’s reins, something he would just as soon leave to his younger brother. He only wanted to travel and write, putting his degree in literature to some good use before all he had learned deserted him.

Spontaneity is the only way, he said quietly to no one in particular I’ll stay in this little town for a while, maybe get a story or two, and then move on when it suits me...or bores me.

He didn’t allow himself to think about the real reason for the sudden departure from his hometown. Just let the setting sun and the smell of ocean pull him westward, away from what he most wanted to forget for a while, biding the healer, time, to ease his pain a bit. In his actions that morning however, a connection had been made that would take him to his goal in a totally unexpected way, which is of course, the way life usually happens.

* * *

Tom Barnic woke. He stretched his short, powerful frame and slowly rolled out of the king-sized bed that helped contain his many times restless sleep. Restlessness was a way of life for him, all through his pampered, willful childhood and into a spate of teenage wildness. Only at the age of nineteen, when his father’s sudden death from a heart attack sobered him, did he begin to see the wisdom of thinking more deeply about life and his reason for being here.

Not so surprisingly it was a combination of the restlessness and the sobering effect of his father’s death that drove him to become a psychologist, and a good one from a theoretical point of view. Practically, he had never cured anyone of anything, but then he had little patience with people, only with ideas. So for most of his professional life a small part of him had disseminated theories and ideas about the mind to university audiences. Only after lectures, during open discussions, did all of him come alive, when a few of the bolder students would latch on to some concept and try to dig deeper. Then he could teach vertically instead of laterally, following each concept along natural lines to its logical conclusion, creating a thing of beauty, instead of a mass of loosely related facts, meant only for regurgitation at exam time. But that was past now. His restlessness had finally driven him beyond that stage of his life, as well.

The restlessness showed as he walked along Forest Road, head down, muttering to himself, toward the café for an afternoon brunch. Cooking was beyond him, so he often started his mornings with a brisk walk down to the local café; halfway decent food for a more than decent price. He didn’t much care what he ate, as long as it filled his stomach.

As he walked along, his mind went back to the decision he had make the night before, and then to his father, who had always been there for him when decisions had to be made. His father’s death so unnerved him that he left right after the funeral and entered a nearby monastery, surprising everyone, including himself. After two years there and three years wandering around India, practicing meditation under various self-proclaimed masters, some good, some not, his youthful wildness had been harnessed into a thoughtful restlessness that in time led him back to the university he had dropped out of when his father died.

Those five years had taught him the value of patience, but it was still an art he sometimes found difficult; like today, for example. He wanted to get back to his research as soon as possible; but knew he could no longer do it alone; and this galled him. In this galled frame of mind, he entered the café, sat down and gruffly ordered his usual breakfast, only noticing in retrospect, that some young kid was taking his order and seemed to be doing the cooking too, which was not unusual for this place.

Where’s Carl today?

Carl?

Yeah, the guy that owns the place.

Oh...that guy, the kid said with a grin. He said he was going shopping. Actually, he just looked like he needed a break.

Yeah, he’s been trying to get some help around here for a while. When did you start?

This morning. Got into town last night, decided to stay awile; saw the sign and took the job.

Kinda slow here.

Yeah...

Life to exciting in the big city?

A bemused smile crawled across the kid’s face.

Do I look like I’m from a big city?

No, actually you don’t, but people from small towns usually go to big cities and vice versa.

I’ve been in both, but I like small towns. They’re full of real people.

Tom looked up from his coffee,

People in big cities aren’t real?

I mean... people in a small town are a stable part of the landscape. If you see them once, chances are you’ll see them again and get to know them.

Yeah, I see what you mean.

‘And...if you get to know them, you can become part of their experience, their connections, and the relational drama they live in."

You can’t do that in a big city? said Tom.

People in big cities are more elusive. It’s hard to get to know anybody, and even if you do, the relational webs they’re embedded in aren’t nearly as obvious as they are in small towns.

Tom came out of his funky fog and took his first hard look at this ‘kid’. What he saw was deceptive. The tall frame clad in Levi’s and a mountain climbing club t-shirt, and the shaggy hair framing a narrow, rugged face all said ‘country boy’. But the dark grey eyes showed both sensitivity and intelligence.

True, said Tom, In a big city everyone’s anonymous.

And that’s why it seems kind of slippery...and unreal.

You sound like some kind of psychologist, said Tom.

No, I majored in literature, but you’re right in a way. I really want to be a writer; and the first thing a writer has to be is a good psychologist, and sociologist, and a few other gists."

Well, that’s true, totally true. I do a little research myself that takes me across a few fields.

What kind of research?

Ohh..., unusual phenomena.

You mean like...UFOs and stuff like that?

Tom chuckled.

Well, if a UFO landed, I‘d certainly investigate. No, right now I’m looking into some of the old Indian myths about special places of power supposed to exist in the mountains around here.

I suppose if you look carefully, any place is a place of power, said Jeremy.

"True...maybe it’s the way you look that creates the power. By the way, Tom Barnic," he said extending his hand.

Um...Jeremy Bursack. What kind of places of power?

Oh, just old myths about ancient waterways and unusual geologic formations; nothing really special.

Oh, Jeremy seemed disappointed.

Tom leaned back, took a sip of coffee, and watched Jeremy cleaning the counter. The need to talk to someone about his discovery had been mounting for some time and had now reached a critical stage, yet he repressed the urge to just blurt out the story. He was beginning to think...no, feel that this kid could be someone he could confide in, but was the feeling a real evaluation of the situation, or just wishful thinking? God! He didn’t want to go back there alone again but go he would.

Ancient things interest you?

Jeremy laughed.

Well, like most people, I’m a sucker for anything mysterious or unusual; especially if it makes a good story.

He continued wiping an already clean counter, then looked up and fixed Tom with an intent look.

How ancient we talking here?

Hard to say, Tom hedged.

But you’re sitting on some kind of story, aren’t you?

Tom’s eyebrows rose.

What makes you think so?

Because you walked in here hungry, but haven’t touched anything. You’re obviously preoccupied with something.

Tom gave a wry smile.

Very perceptive; sure you weren’t a bartender in your last life?

Not likely. Not that I remember any past lives. You?

As you’ve observed, I’m rather preoccupied with this one.

A young couple walked in and sat down at one of the tables close to the front window and Jeremy went to wait on them. Tom finally gave vent to his hunger and attacked the short stack and eggs in front of him. By the time he had finished eating, Jeremy had served the couple by the window and was about to refill Tom’s cup, but Tom declined.

It’s been nice talking to you. If you’re still here next time I drop by, maybe I’ll entertain you with a story or two.

Jeremy grinned.

Looking forward to it. I told Carl I’d stay for a few months, so....

Yup, I’ll see you again, then.

To be open to the eternal ‘now’ and what it has to offer you

Learn to observe without the egotistical baggage

Of judgmental attitudes

And through this clarity, become more aware

Of the real nature and content of each moment

Chapter 2

Thanksgiving with Clara

When he got home, there was a message on the answering machine from his wife Clara asking if was going to make it back home for Thanksgiving. Tom picked up the phone, then let it slide back into its cradle and quietly walked outside onto the front porch where he settled into an old rocking chair he had gotten at the local swap meet. He rocked slowly back and forth, thinking about Clara, the twins, John and Michele, now away at college, of the life he had left behind in order to quench or at least pour water on this insatiable restlessness that had plagued his entire life.

The only time he could remember being halfway settled in any way was when he was in university getting his doctorate in psychology. Those were good times, a little wild, but a lot of hard work and study too; satisfying times. Then he had gotten married, to a woman more wonderful than he deserved. Soon the twins came along, and the four of them, Clara, himself and the twins had spent the next eighteen years in Northern California; Clara as a community councilor for the economically disadvantaged in the area, and himself with a rather lucrative university professorship. But for all those eighteen years, that itch inside just kept nagging at him. Clara had known. She knew everything about him.

He’d just looked at her one day, not saying anything. After a few seconds, she simply nodded, but in her eyes was the love and understanding they had shared for a lifetime.

Clara, he had begun, the emotion boiling over in him.

Time to go, isn’t it.

Yeah.

They had stood there, emotions reflecting in each other’s eyes, he not believing he was going off on his own and leaving this wonderful woman behind. She knowing he was. It wrenched his heart to look at her.

Just for a little while, he had hedged.

Yes, just a little while, she said knowingly.

Clara, I just can’t sit around here anymore. Every time I get in the car to go to the university, I come so close to missing the turnoff, and if I did, I don’t know where I’d stop.

At the end of the rainbow, she said, where lies the answer.

The answer? said Tom. I don’t even know the question. All I know is this gut-aching restlessness inside me.

Tom, she said, putting her hand on his chest, but he kept on, trying to talk out his feelings to himself as much as Clara.

I mean, most people feel restless sometimes, but I always feel like I’m about to burst if I don’t start doing something... radical with my life.

Spending two years in a monastery and three in India was a little radical? said Clara. And how about raising two kids?

And that, despite the fact that I’ve got a wife and children straight out of a dream. Something is wrong inside me; something is wanting...out or in. I don’t know which and I’ve got to find out what it is.

The road sometimes beckons to all of us, Tom, said Clara, maybe because it gives us new things that take our minds off the old. And if we’re lucky it even gives us insight.

Then you won’t give up on me if I go for a while, said Tom.

No, I’ll never give up, Tom. I’ve seen this coming for a long time, she said softly. Sometimes I felt our love was like a chain, haunting you.

Tom shook his head and raised his hands in protest, No, no, that isn’t....

But Clara had laid a finger on his lips and continued.

Tom, do you know I saw this inside you even before we were married? said Clara.

And you never said anything, said Tom.

What was there to say? I knew who you were. That’s why I married you.

She looked down at her hands for a full ten seconds, and then looked up with a wry smile.

You’re sure to find it, she said.

Find what? said Tom.

Your answer, said Clara.

You really think so? said Tom.

Of course, wherever you go you’ll be carrying it inside of you, and some new place will be the key that frees it.

He stood there for a moment, his gut pulling him in two different directions, and wondering why right here and now with this incredible woman wasn’t the key he seemed to need.

Sometimes it’s hard to stay and even harder to go.

Yes, said Clara, but there’s a time for both. You’ve stayed long enough for me to know you love me. Now go fix yourself, then come home and stay.

He looked deeply into her eyes for five long seconds.

Sometimes Clara, I think our souls talk to each other.

You’ll stay in touch? said Clara, A mobile phone number at least. And call sometimes? Let us know what kind of great adventures you’re having?

He took her hands in his and drew her close until their foreheads touched.

Wherever I am, a large part of me is still here with you.

And the part that isn’t? said Clara.

Will be reporting in on a regular basis.

She had smiled, and Tom, his heart aching for what he was leaving behind, drove away the next morning, finding himself a couple of weeks later in a small town in southern Oregon not far from the coast. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but this place not only felt comfortable, but seemed to give him the space and anonymity he felt he needed to pursue his inner quest, as he had come to call it.

Whether it was luck or destiny that led to that particular town and house out of the hundreds and thousands he could have ended up in, was not, he felt worth dwelling on. The point was that he had come here, to this town and bought this house, which had been sitting, vacant on the market for almost a year. The previous owner lived in Portland and was eager to unload a house he had inherited, somewhat surprisingly, from a distant cousin, an odd sort, who had lived here alone for most of his life. Tom was able to pick it up for a fraction of its real value, not realizing its real worth had nothing to do with its price.

Being the industrious sort, Tom immediately began fixing the place up. He spent a week in the basement installing some biofeedback equipment to monitor his meditation sessions. After finishing, he stood back proudly looking at his creation. Except for one old anachronism it was perfect. He looked at the coal bin, a relic from bygone days and decided it would definitely have to go too, but it was late, and he decided to leave it for another day.

Now he just looked forward to the relief of home and Thanksgiving. Then too, he needed to reassure Clara and the twins he hadn’t gone completely off his rocker; and was still the loving husband and father that treasured them. When he thought of all four of them being together again, his heart welled up with the love and pride he felt for his wife and children, feelings he had put in a box marked home and stored in the back of his mind when he left several months ago, only occasionally opening the lid and letting the emotions spill out. He needed to see them. He also needed to come back here and spend at least a couple more months of exploration without the interference or worry of his family.

He got up and went inside. Nostalgia filled him as he dialed that familiar number. For one frozen moment he couldn’t think of anything to say to this person he loved so much. Then he laughed. They could be reading encyclopedias to each other and still each word would be packed with the love and meaning of more than twenty years together.

He smiled wryly. He felt like a young boy calling his first love. With trembling hands and racing heart he listened to it ring.

Hello?

He relaxed at the sound of her voice and smiled.

Hey, girl. What’s up?

Ohhh..., the traveler.

O.K. if I come home?

Why wouldn’t it be?

Thought you might be philandering with some new guy by now.

Yeah, right, fat chance at this stage of life. You coming for Thanksgiving?

Where else would I be?

When?

In about of week. A few days before turkeys say their prayers. When are the twins coming?

They’ll be here tomorrow. We’ll get everything ready for you.

O.K. babe; I’ll see you in a week or so.

Tom?

Yeah?

You O.K. up there?

Yeah, sure. Why?

I’m kind of worried about you.

Hey, I’ve got a great house and a fine little adventure going. You should come and see the place.

I just might drive up and surprise you sometime, said Clara.

Remind me to give you the key to the house, then. Otherwise, you might be sitting on the porch for a few days.

I will and drive carefully. I don’t want to be waiting dinner for you and have a policeman knock on the door.

I’ll be there, cruising slow and easy.

He let her bye bye resonate in his mind as he put the phone down, went out into the early evening, and down the sidewalk, walking and thinking to the music of a cool, gentle breeze caressing his face and shimmering the dry leaves on the autumn trees above him.

* * *

Tom visited the café almost daily and an easy friendship began to grow as he and Jeremy exchanged stories and observations about the town and its citizens. A week passed and Tom was sitting there one evening after eating, nursing a cup of coffee, obviously preoccupied about something. The place was empty and Jeremy was getting ready to lock up when Tom broke the silence.

Is that cheap hotel really that comfortable for you? I mean, you’re planning on staying a while, right?

Jeremy stood there in surprise for a moment.

Well, yeah, it’s O.K. I mean, it would be nice to have an apartment, but two-month rentals are a little hard to find.

I got an extra room at my place. It’s a bit out of town, a couple hundred meters, or so toward Wilderness Park from here.

Wilderness Park? I’ve been there. It is a nice walk, said Jeremy cautiously.

Pasture on one side and forest on the other. You’d enjoy the place, I think, said Tom.

The thought of moving from the dumpy hotel to a proper house pulled at him, but at the hotel he had an independence he was loath to give up. He hesitated.

Well..., how much you asking for it?

A hundred bucks should do it.

A hundred bucks...a week? That’s a little..., said Jeremy.

A month Jeremy, not a week.

A month?! Why so cheap?

Well, some quiet company would be nice, and if you like you can help with my research occasionally, Tom said, as long as it doesn’t conflict with your job here, that is.

Jeremy stood there pulled in two directions.

You know...that sounds interesting as long as there’re no long-term responsibilities. Fact is, I could just up and leave without much notice.

Hey, you’re looking at the original ‘leave without notice’.

Then...yeah, I’d like living in a real house for a change.

Good. I can show you the house tomorrow before I take off, said Tom

Going into the mountains again?

No, home for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving! Hell, I forgot all about it. I should call my folks.

But you’ll be staying here? said Tom.

Definitely. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Tom left then, and Jeremy watched him go, relaxed and unaware of the future that was rushing toward him.

He moved in, and the next day Tom left the house in Jeremy’s care while he drove off in the direction of a loving family and a humbling good Thanksgiving dinner.

How many infinite beings

In all the infinite universes

Are there?

Chapter 3

The Joining of Friends

Ladu stood several meters from the water in the underground grotto, waiting for the ship to arrive. The vast cavern he and his crewmates had found on the third planet after their excruciating experience had been left intact and untouched until the Council could make a decision on how and whether to explore it. Occupied planets were touchy issues and in the end it was decided that only one Bwatami would be allowed to return and make contact with whatever had ‘entered’ he and his crew when they had passed by. Ladu had used every political credit he had to be that one, despite the intense loneliness he knew he was sentencing himself to.

So it was with a burgeoning heart he heard the murmurs begin inside his mind and knew the ship had slipped out of the space-time bubble it had been riding within since leaving their home planet Tandalar. His comrades, only minutes away, were melding their minds and voices in an age-old chant. The closer they came, the more he yearned for the chanting and the mind and soul clearing Union that would once again connect him to the collective bonds that had fed and nourished him since memories began. Now there would be three of them here.

He thought of how his coming comrades would react to the indigenous plant life, the tall, thick branched trees staggered across the mountains and valleys of the cavern. Half mineral and half plant, the trees were a legacy, he assumed, of those ancients who had created this place, eons ago. The luminescent moss he had introduced from his home planet Tandalar now covered these strange trees creating inverted chandeliers, beacons of ethereal light dominating all around them.

Between the gargantuan trees, small shrub-like plants, also from Tandalar projected a multitude of colors, each leaf giving off its own subtly unique hue. The spores from the moss and bushes would by now have been carried by the ever blowing gentle breezes throughout the huge, dimly lit cavern, providing a soft mossy covering, and clear illuminating light. But more important even than the light was the warmth these plants gave off, enough to dispel the numbing cold he had found when he first came here.

There was one other reason Ladu had come here alone. Bwatami in close proximity had a powerful temptation to merge into Union with others of their race, to experience the inescapable joy and cleansing of their minds. But to do so here might open them up to the same mind-scouring and soul-numbing experience that had brought them to this planet many months ago, an experience they now attributed straight to the strange artifact Ladu had found in this cavern.

Many months of his experimenting alone with the artifact had brought no response, let alone anything resembling that first experience and he was now ready for the second stage of his research. It would be a very simple experiment, just enter Union with one of his two comrades, a Union that would open them to the cool spring of Bwatami mass consciousness, a merging with the myriad minds of his race, and see what, if anything comes from the artifact in response to this Union. His other comrade would stay out of Union, just in case the artifact decided to scour their minds again, there would be someone, untouched, there to help.

As he was thinking this, the ship he was waiting for slipped into Earth’s atmosphere, slightly warping the space in front of it, leaving neither sound nor turbulence behind. Within seconds it entered the Pacific Ocean off the southern Oregon coast in the same unobtrusive, silent manner, displacing the space-time around it so subtly that not even the fish noticed any difference in their watery existence. It plummeted till close to the bottom, where it entered a large underwater cave which wound upward and eastward for several minutes before coming out into a small lake in an underground grotto. The ship slipped from the water and came to rest on a sloping mossy bank.

After a few moments, an opening materialized in the side of the craft, and three Bwatami stepped out. The first of the three was the pilot who would soon be returning to the opulent safety of Tandalar. The other two, Vartuse and Mitak, would be staying. Planetary anthropologists and skilled in cross-species communications, it was the hope of the Council on Tandalar that their cross-planetary experience would be useful in communicating with the artifact they now simply called the ‘Crystal’, the strange, seemingly sentient crystalline device that had caused such chaos during their first ‘contact’ so many months ago.

The four spoke in the melodious Bwatami tongue of happenings here and on Tandalar as they unloaded baggage and new equipment from the ship. Then without ceremony the pilot walked back into the ship, the door sliding quietly shut after him. The remaining three picked up their backpacks and began walking up a well-worn path as the ship re-entered the water and disappeared.

They made their way with little trouble through the grotto, passed under a stone archway and entered an area where the light brightened considerably. Vartuse and Mitak stopped there for long seconds taking in the beauty and strangeness of the mystical landscape confronting them. Standing out against the cool soft light given off by the moss and trees were occasional mounts of moss-resistant, reddish-pink quartz ten to twelve meters high. Rearing out of the cavern floor, they gave off a pale, reddish light of their own which merged with the soft, dark blue emanating from an unseen ceiling far above. Ubiquitous between the light-strewing trees and reddish quartz mounts, bunches of the small bushes spread their multi-colored flowering branches, splotches of color floating lightly in a soft airy sea.

Another unique world, said Vartuse.

Yes, one more to add to our minds, said Mitak.

Ladu waited patiently, watching the differing hues of light reflecting off Vartuse and Mitak’s translucent, turquoise skins and high, broad foreheads as they slowly turned to look in different directions. As they took in the unreal landscape their half-moon mouths curled upward a hint more, framing their wide sloping noses. Only the uncanny power and purpose residing in their eyes tempered the humor projected by these natural features. Made of thousands of tiny turquoise cones of alternating darker and lighter nuance, the eyes seemed to swallow light, only to release it in a shimmering reflection of the differing hues and intensities of their surroundings.

As they moved away from the entranceway, their elongated, humanoid shapes moved with grace and quickness, the ground beneath them flowing by with deceptive speed. Within a short while they disappeared into a quickly expanding cavern whose roof was lost in