Part 2 (2/2)

I sensed a trap. But it would be safer to get out of it later than refuse now. 'Sure.'

'That would be very kind of you. I'll mention it when I see my brother-in-law next...'

I met the husky dog on the beach. His Serendipity chose to address me in its barks.

'What did you expect, Quasar? Did you think raising the curtain on the age of h.o.m.o serendipitous h.o.m.o serendipitous was going to be easy?' was going to be easy?'

'No, my Lord. But when are the yogic fliers going to be despatched to the White House and the European parliament, to demand your release?'

'Eat eggs, my faithful one.'

'Eggs, my Lord?'

'Eggs are a symbol of rebirth, Quasar. And eat Orange Rocket ice lollies.'

'What do they symbolise, Guru?'

'Nothing. They contain vitamin C in abundance.'

'It shall be so, my Lord. But the yogic fliers, my Father-'

My only reply was a barking dog, and a puzzled look from the two lovers, jumping up suddenly from behind a stack of rusty oil drums. The three of us looked at each other in confusion. The dog c.o.c.ked its leg and p.i.s.sed against a tractor tyre. The ocean boomed its indifference.

The little baby girl in the woolly cap, she had liked me. How could she have liked me? It was just some facial reflex, no doubt. She gurgled at me, smiling. Her mother looked at who she was smiling at, and she smiled at me too. Her eyes were warm. I didn't smile back. I looked away. I wish I had smiled back. But I wish they hadn't smiled at me. Would they have survived? Or would the gas have got them? If they hadn't moved, it would have leaked out of the package and straight into their noses, eyes, and lungs...

Mum. Dad.

But we were only defending ourselves! There was one day, during my a.s.signment to the Ministry of Information. One of our sister's skin relatives, her unclean uncle, had taken court action to stop her selling their family's farmhouse and land. He was a property lawyer. The Secret Service had brought this flesh brother in for questioning. His Serendipity instantly knew he was a spy sent by the unclean. An a.s.sa.s.sination plot was being engineered, it seemed. Laughable! All of us in Sanctuary knew how, thirty years ago, while travelling in Tibet, a being of pure consciousness named Arupadhatu transmigrated into His Serendipity, and revealed the secrets of freeing the mind from its physical shackles. This had been the beginning of His Serendipity's path up the holy mountain. Even if the body of His Serendipity were harmed, he could leave his old body and transmigrate into another, as easily as I change hotels and islands. He could transmigrate into his own a.s.sa.s.sin. There was one day, during my a.s.signment to the Ministry of Information. One of our sister's skin relatives, her unclean uncle, had taken court action to stop her selling their family's farmhouse and land. He was a property lawyer. The Secret Service had brought this flesh brother in for questioning. His Serendipity instantly knew he was a spy sent by the unclean. An a.s.sa.s.sination plot was being engineered, it seemed. Laughable! All of us in Sanctuary knew how, thirty years ago, while travelling in Tibet, a being of pure consciousness named Arupadhatu transmigrated into His Serendipity, and revealed the secrets of freeing the mind from its physical shackles. This had been the beginning of His Serendipity's path up the holy mountain. Even if the body of His Serendipity were harmed, he could leave his old body and transmigrate into another, as easily as I change hotels and islands. He could transmigrate into his own a.s.sa.s.sin.

Anyway, this lawyer was injected with truth serum and confessed to everything. His mission had been to put an odourless poison into the refectory rice cookers. His Serendipity's wife conducted the interview herself, I heard.

You see! We were only defending ourselves.

My fingernails are coming loose.

I spent the afternoon walking to the lighthouse. I sat on a rock and watched the waves and the birds. A typhoon was moving up the coast of China, skirting Taiwan, and looming over the Okinawan horizon. Clouds were piling up in the west, winds were unravelling. I was being discussed, and decisions were being taken. What had gone wrong? A few more months, and my alpha quotient would have been 25, putting me in the top two hundred on Earth His Serendipity had a.s.sured me, in person. I had ingested some of His Serendipity's eyelashes. After winning converts on the Welcome Programme I was rewarded with a test tube of the Guru's sperm to imbibe. It boosted my gamma resistance. I had been taken off the lavatory docket and been made a cleanser. For the first time in my life, I was becoming a name.

The corrugated iron roof of an abandoned shed clattered to and fro in the wind.

Nothing has gone wrong. Nothing has gone wrong, Quasar. It was your faith that brought you to His Serendipity's notice. It is your faith that will guide you through the Days of Persecution, through the terrible days of the White Night to the New Earth. It is your faith that will nourish you now.

Everything around me on this G.o.dforsaken island is crumbling. I should have stayed in Naha. I should have hidden in snow country, or deep-frozen Hokkaido, or lost myself amid a metropolis of my own kind. What happened, I wonder, to Mr Ikeda? Where do people who drop off the edge of your world end up?

Typhoon weather.

The curtains I keep drawn. Our Minister of Defence received some reports that the government of the unclean had developed micro-cameras which they implanted in the craniums of seagulls, which were then trained to spy. Not to mention the Americans' secret satellites, scrolling over the globe, scanning for the Fellows.h.i.+p at the behest of the politicians and the Jews, who long ago had set up the Freemasons, and funded Chinese to pollute the well of history.

I was sitting with my back to the lighthouse on the lonely headland. Headlights approached, seeking me out. I looked for a place to hide. There was none. A seagull watched me. It had a cruel face. A blue and white car pulled up. Too late, I looked for a place to hide. A door opened, and a dim light lit up the interior.

They've found me! The rest of for ever in a cell...

And then, so strangely, I'm relieved it's all over. At least I can stop running.

A hand was already clearing stuff from the front seat. Its owner leant forwards. 'Mr Tokunaga, I presume?'

Grimly, I nodded, and walked towards my captor.

'I've been searching for you. The name's Ota. I'm the harbourmaster. You spoke with my brother just the other day, about giving a lecture at my wife's school. How about a lift back to town? You must be tired, after walking all the way out here, all on your own?'

I obeyed, and still trembling I climbed in and put on my seatbelt.

'Lucky I was pa.s.sing... there's a typhoon warning, you know. I saw a figure, all hunched like it was the end of the world, and I thought to myself, I wonder if that's Mr Tokunaga? Not feeling too chipper, this evening?'

'No.'

'Maybe you've been overdoing it. The island air is good for clearing the head, but at the rate you've been tramping around... Terribly sorry to hear about your wife.'

'Death is a part of life.'

'That's a sound philosophy, but it can't be easy to keep your thoughts focused.'

'I can. I'm a good focuser.'

He braked and beeped a couple of times at a goat standing in the middle of the road. Magisterially, the goat sniffed at us, and wandered into a field.

'Must tell Mrs Bessho that Caligula's escaped again. You name it, goats eat it! So, you're a good focuser, you were saying. Splendid, splendid. It would be a crime not to try diving while you're here, you know. We have the finest Pacific reefs north of the equator, I'm told. By the way, the youngsters are delighted at the prospect of a real computer man coming to talk to them. No great scholars, I'm afraid, but they're keen. My wife would like you to join us for dinner tomorrow, if you're free. So, Mr Tokunaga. Tell me a little about yourself...'

The road looped back around to the port, as all the roads on this island eventually do.

Clouds began to ink out the stars, one by one.

Tokyo

Spring was late on this rainy morning, and so was I. The commuters streamed to work with their collars and umbrellas up. The cherry trees lining the backstreet were still winter trees, craggy, pocked, and dripping. I fished around for my keys, rattled up the shutters, and opened the shop.

I looked through the post while the water was boiling. Some mail orders good. Bills, bills bad. A couple of enquiries from a regular customer in Nagano about rare discs that I'd never heard of. b.u.mf. An entirely ordinary morning. Time for oolong tea. I put on a very rare Miles Davis recording that Takes.h.i.+ had discovered in a box of mixed-quality discs which he'd picked up at an auction last month out in s.h.i.+nagawa.

It was a gem. You never entered my mind You never entered my mind was blissful and forlorn. Some faultless mute-work, the trumpet filtered down to a single ray of sound. The bra.s.sy sun lost behind the clouds. was blissful and forlorn. Some faultless mute-work, the trumpet filtered down to a single ray of sound. The bra.s.sy sun lost behind the clouds.

The first customer of the week was a foreigner, either American or European or Australian, you can never tell because they all look the same. A lanky, zitty foreigner. He was a real collector, though, not just a browser. He had that manic glint in his eyes, and his fingers were adept at flicking through metres of discs at high speed, like a bank teller counting notes. He bought a virgin copy of 'Stormy Sunday' by Kenny Burrell, and 'Flight to Denmark' by Duke Jordan, recorded in 1973. He had a cool T-s.h.i.+rt, too. A bat flying around a skysc.r.a.per, leaving a trail of stars. I asked him where he was from. He said thank you very much. Westerners can't learn j.a.panese.

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