Part 27 (2/2)

Before she could continue, Ric stood up and waved her to be silent.

'Everyone is right. Human communication is always a cacophony of misunderstandings masquerading as communication. It's is one of the main reasons we are in the mess we are, and I mean us here and now as well as the world in general. If there's one thing we have in common as a species it's the fact that each one of us is ultimately alone in our own private world. Whereas in the public world we are usually afraid to admit of the loneliness, uncertainty and basic vulnerability we each feel at the bottom of ourselves. While in private we can weep for ourselves and the things we do to each other and the world; in public this would be seen as weakness, folly, or insanity. In public most people hold back their inner thoughts, mostly out of fear of being misunderstood or from an inability to say what they mean. That's why Barboncito's 'isms are so popular, they give us the answers we need and speak these things for us without each of us having to be publicly responsible for anything. The bizarre thing is how much we really have in common as a feeling, thinking species. The great mistake is that although we have recognised our vulnerability and weakness as a species, we have placed this outside ourselves. Not however in a public place where it can be seen and managed, but in a private one. Essentially each person does one of two things. They give up their vulnerable selves into the hands of a divine to keep on their behalf. Or, alternatively, they deny this vulnerability and refute the divine. Both ways are ultimately unsatisfactory, for in Chieko's term they are not authentic. The only authentic reality in communication is the immediate and totally empathetic understanding of ourselves, one to another without the need to interpret symbols of language, religious explanations of human nature, or any other more 'scientifically' defined behaviours.'

'He stopped for a moment to let his words sink in. Since no one interjected he continued.

'There is a reason for this sermon for which I apologise, but which I hope more than anything will be made clear to you in a few moments. Firstly I want you to remain silent and consider the experience you all had of Lucina that time at the Advisory Group meeting. Then, I think you will realise there was no doubt in any mind about the meaning of the communication she made with each of you. You will also recall that her communication was different in slight ways for each person. There was no extraneous material whatever to interfere with the connections. What happened then was what I have since come to know as a mind-mix. That's right, Mimix is the name of our new machine and only myself Karl and Penny, and of course Hep, knows what it means to experience such a thing. Before we go any further I want them to describe a Mimix experience to you. Penny Please?'

'Does this mean you are...?'

'Just tell them Penny, the rest will be made clear soon.

'Ric, I think it's probably one of those things it's harder to describe than to experience. It's like nothing else I ever went through other than that encounter with Lucina you just mentioned'. She thought for a moment and continued 'Well, and please chip in Karl if I get it wrong, it's a bit like you were minding your own business, and suddenly you become aware of another person in your mind. Like you knew absolutely for certain you were alone in your house and someone else had somehow got in and was with you.'

Karl Kahn broke in. 'That's a good comparison, it's as if the person who was in there with you knows all about you, your house, your family everything, and somehow you don't mind because you know the same about them. If they were to lie, you'd know, and vice-versa. There's no hiding place, and no need for one. The main thing you know is that both of you are equally open to the other and therefore equally vulnerable.'

'That right,' said Penny. 'The equality comes from the vulnerability itself. Your mutual nakedness or weakness becomes the thing that strengthens the relations.h.i.+p you can't avoid having. It's the greatest of all human paradoxes, the fact that our individual vulnerability is our greatest strength and it's the very thing we are most afraid of!'

'So,' said Ric. 'What happens in the mutual vulnerability of the mind-mix?'

'Your fears,' Karl replied. 'Are cancelled out. The need for personal s.p.a.ce to hide disappears and a kind of wonderful species commonality takes over. It's like being born again, free of the personal barrier, free in public like free in private.'

'Private thoughts made public?' queried Chu.

'It makes them real for the first time. It was Hannah Arendt, who said private thoughts spoken publicly make them real,' said Penny 'In the Mimix they're so liberating you feel somehow helplessly imprisoned in yourself when you come out of it.'

'That's right,' said Karl. 'You feel bereft, alone, like you've lost the truest of friends or a lover.

'Thanks,' said Ric. 'I am now going to try an experiment which has to work if we are to use the chance I spoke of just now.'

He brought out from under the table a medium sized cardboard box which he placed in front of him. He drew from it what appeared to be an oversized wrist-watch. A small, curved oval, it was about three centimetres wide, four long, and about three millimetres thick. It had elasticised metal straps at each end with which it appeared to fit pretty comfortably on the lower forearm.

'Voila...,Mimix!' exclaimed Ric, not without a degree of satisfaction.

'It's ready?' asked Penny with emphasis.

'Yes, it works well enough and we have finally made it small enough to be easily portable.'

'How's it powered?' asked Lyle Etchart.

'Ah! That's possibly a slight problem.To avoid the need for bulky batteries, we've powered it by light. It doesn't need much to make it go but it won't work for very long in pitch-blackness.

'It's got a small back up cell,' Karl Khan added. 'But it only stores enough energy for a maximum of five minutes in the dark. It'll work in street-lights for example, or near a candle, any light source actually - just, but it wouldn't work, say, down a mine.'

'Ah! So we'd better not spend a lot of time in an unlit mine should we?' Doris quipped. She was unconvinced by gadgetry, preferring the strength of her mind to achieve her will.

'No Doris we'd better not,' said Ric. 'But what we are saying is it's not infallible. There are circ.u.mstances when you might want to use it, in a dark room for example, where you want to communicate silently with someone without being observed. Just remember it won't work in the dark for long that's all.'

'Okay, okay, dish 'em out, Ric, we're all dying to give it a go.' Jose Condamine held out his wrist.

'Alright, but there's a couple of other points you should know about. Penny, Karl and I, and of course Hep, have tried it. The effects are immediate but more importantly, and I can't stress this enough - they are permanent. It's like the apple of the tree of knowledge, once bitten into there's no going back. The minute you're switched on you're in a different world altogether and there's no going back - not ever.' He looked at Doris as he spoke. 'It's not compulsory, We've talked it over, and we've decided to give you the option of refusing to use it.'

'Count me out,' said Doris. 'The last thing I want to do is get close to the thoughts of anyone else, and I certainly don't want anyone getting close to any of mine. I want my privacy thank you. I get where I do precisely because no one can read my thoughts.'

'That's what I mean,' said Ric. 'But the other and converse point I want to emphasise, is that without using Mimix you are also excluded. It doesn't matter now, while there are so few. The whole point is to proliferate them as far and wide as possible. We reckon more people will want them than don't. If we can get them disseminated fast enough, and you should know Hep has got factories in all the decent weather pattern spheres churning them out as we speak. We have from now until October at the latest to get about three billion out. Fortunately Hep's found a way of making them quickly and cheaply.'

'Hang on a bit Ric,' it was all going a bit fast for Bill Kanapi. 'Just let me check out I've got all this right - Mimix is not just something for us in JNO to use, as a way of getting advantage over Fourthworld. You actually want everyone to have it?'

'Absolutely!'

'I get it,' said Doris. 'Very clever. Penny you tell us, you've used it?'

Penny smiled, there was no putting anything over on this lady.

'Like I already said,' she responded. 'Mimix is like nothing else. It's the main chance JNO has got to reach our goal in time. We have to flood the world with these things as soon as possible. I doubt that even you Doris, will be able to hold out against having one once they are universal. Sure some people will refuse, Doris is quite at liberty to do so if she wishes, but she will find herself in a minority and becoming more and more excluded. The point is, and I'm sure you're all ahead of me already like Doris here, the point is we have to do what Chieko said and make authentic contact with each other, everyone, all the time and soon. This gizmo will do it if we can get it out fast enough. It will answer Myanthi's question about changing the culture and getting to a critical ma.s.s at the same time and in the time scale - just about.'

'So? - let's get at it, like now!' Condamine almost shouted in his eagerness.

'Wait,' said Lynne Farrell. 'n.o.body should get linked up until we are all totally sure of what we are doing. I haven't used the thing, but I think I have an inkling what Penny and Karl mean. If its effects are so radical, we must be on top of the thing before we go into it. Eh Jose?'

'Okay, okay, sure thing Lynne, but we are goin' to use it ain't we, so what's the point of hanging around? Can't see the point of waiting.'

'We must know ourselves first, I am in agreement with Lynne,' said Chu. 'I want all the story told in detail as far as it can be before I choose to change the nature of my relations.h.i.+p with the rest of the world, even if it only begins with you good people whom I trust.'

Ric nodded and said. 'I think it would be best if first Karl and I explain the details of the machine and how it works, then Lynne and her media group can get to grips with it. Thereafter we are literally in the lap of the G.o.ds.'

It was another three days before they all agreed to be strapped up with a Mimix set and another week by the time they were used to handling it. Doris overcame her objections after a short observation of the effect on the others and as predicted, was unable to stand being the odd one out.

Chapter 12.

While the mortal subsidiary of JNO was getting its act together on Ios, the senior partners at Olympic-HQ in the hidden New York penthouse suite were engaged in a scene of a different kind. The Twelve, enlarged by two, found that becoming the 'Fourteen' had turned out to be something that had been seriously ill considered by everyone. They had worked hard at doing the thing but were poorly prepared for the aftermath. There had been a grave failure of antic.i.p.ation. Firstly, none of the children of Chronos would have anything to do with their father. Though infuriating, this had been predictable and it was realised too late that someone should have handled it better in advance. Revulsion ran deep and flowed full laden. Whatever Chronos said or did. Whatever he might say or do. He could not, as Demeter said with feeling - do anything right for being wrong. Whether the loathing derived entirely from direct experience of spending time in so abhorrent a stomach or equally, or even more probably, from an revulsion of the nature of the deed itself. Had he not nearly succeeded in cutting them off from their potential and maintaining his Earth in a Chaos of monsters and other ill-refined beings? Mortals in their beauty and even now, in their foolishness - still offered better possibilities for the future than he. Even in the current crisis, they had not messed up Creation as much as he had done before them. Were it not for the importance of having the skein of time inexorably fixed by him as part of the New Trinity, he would have instantly been re-banished.

They also realised too late, that of course the Pantheon was out of the habit of communication with Hades. The whole of their organisational structure and their operating methods were based on his being in the Underworld. Added to which, for Hades himself, the aeons of distance combined with his manner of coming thence, left the King of the Underworld out of his element. He was also somewhat less than happy being the kidnapper, kidnapped. Also Barboncito was alone and free to come and go in Hades' abandoned realm, and also in Zeus'. Not to mention Hecate, and that reprobate Pan. Others may be roaming wherever, without his control. To cap it all, his ears still rang with the cry of the betrayed from Alexander's hordes. Oh yes, he certainly resented that youth and his handsome black woman. He had had Alexander by the short hairs, had neatly turned him and would have turned all of JNO until Marina came into Hades - or was it the Harpies who were on the wrong side - they who brooked no authority from anyone, but who listened to Hecate and heeded to her advice - often; once too often!

Thus he thought and sulked and smarted.

Zeus forced to keep control of this unhappy brother made sure Themis did the same for Chronos. One to each was fair. Only their extraordinary strength prevented a very serious family rumpus which might all too easily have scuppered Zeus' main plan.

Zeus was very put-out with himself and thus with everyone else. Hera too, was at her wit's end. She rounded on her husband whom she still felt saw the whole thing as a game, a play, an amus.e.m.e.nt - and who, as usual left her to do all the work with 'her mortals' as he called them. Hephaestos, fortunately kept his faith with his mother. Prometheus of course maintained his constancy, and watched over Alexander and Marina in their quest for Barboncito.

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