The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Forty: Six Faces of Truth

Chapter Forty of my book, The Journey to Eternity, shared here chapter by chapter as I write it. Earlier chapters: Chapter One · Chapter Two · Chapter Three · Chapter Four · Chapter Five · Chapter Six · Chapter Seven · Chapter Eight · Chapter Nine · Chapter Ten · Chapter Eleven · Chapter Twelve · Chapter Thirteen · Chapter Fourteen · Chapter Fifteen · Chapter Sixteen · Chapter Seventeen · Chapter Eighteen · Chapter Nineteen · Chapter Twenty · Chapter Twenty-One · Chapter Twenty-Two · Chapter Twenty-Three · Chapter Twenty-Four · Chapter Twenty-Five · Chapter Twenty-Six · Chapter Twenty-Seven · Chapter Twenty-Eight · Chapter Twenty-Nine · Chapter Thirty · Chapter Thirty-One · Chapter Thirty-Two · Chapter Thirty-Three · Chapter Thirty-Four · Chapter Thirty-Five · Chapter Thirty-Six · Chapter Thirty-Seven · Chapter Thirty-Eight · Chapter Thirty-Nine.

Chapter Forty: Six Faces of Truth

"I am not asking their permission to listen."

My words were still echoing in the room when the connection was cut off.

Naama stood before the map, studying the six points that had drifted apart from one another. For ages they had been part of a single system. Now we could approach each one separately.

"I can create a direct connection with the first one," she said, "but we will not do it here."

"Why?"

"Because the workshop is connected to Ayla's and Mala's passages. After what happened at the station, I am not willing to take another risk."

"So where will we speak?"

"In an isolated room. Voice and image only. With no possibility of opening a passage."

"I want them to know that in advance, too."

Naama nodded.

Liara came closer to me.

"You do not know who you are about to speak with."

"I do."

"And you are sure you want to do this now?"

I looked at the six points.

"We have waited long enough to hear what they have to say."

The room Naama prepared was small and plain.

Two chairs stood facing a white wall. Naama checked the connections, disconnected the passage routes and kept full control of the link herself.

"The first one is ready," she said.

"Does she have a name?"

"Sera."

I sat down. Liara remained beside me.

On the wall appeared a tall woman, with a narrow face and dark hair gathered behind her. She looked almost human, except for her eyes, in which tiny points of light moved.

"Sera," I said.

She studied me for a long time.

"It has been a long time."

"To me you are a stranger."

"I see."

"I want to understand why you separated the seventh."

Sera did not look surprised.

"Because we could not go on living inside him."

"What do you mean?"

"At first the connection between us was the most wonderful thing we had known. We could think together, create together, understand things none of us could have understood alone."

She paused.

"And then we stopped knowing where each of us began and where she ended."

"And the seventh caused that?"

"He was the center of the connection. Every thought passed through him."

"Did he do it deliberately?"

"I do not know."

The answer surprised me.

"You never asked him?"

"We asked. He said that he too felt the connection changing, but did not know how to stop it."

"So why did you not try to find another way?"

Sera lowered her gaze.

"We tried. For a long time. But every time we decided to part, we felt his fear inside us. We did not know whether we were changing our minds of our own will, or because he was unable to let us go."

I was silent.

I could understand her fear. Even imagine how I would have felt if I could not distinguish between my own wishes and another person's.

"And after you parted from him?" I asked.

"For the first time, I was alone."

"And was that good?"

Sera smiled a small smile.

"It was frightening. I did not know what to do with the silence. Afterward I began to love it."

"But you left a connection inside him. He went on sensing you without being able to reach you."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"We were afraid he would find a way back."

"Did all of you agree?"

"No."

She fell silent.

"I was among those who wanted to leave the connection. Others objected."

"And did you know what it meant for him?"

"Not in full. But I knew he did not want it."

I looked at her.

"So you chose your choices at his expense."

Sera did not defend herself.

"Yes. At that time I was willing to do almost anything so that I would not lose myself again."

When the connection was cut off, I remained seated.

Liara looked at me.

"What do you think?"

"That I would have been afraid exactly as she was."

"So would I."

"But I cannot understand how they could leave him like that."

"Sometimes fear does not disappear even when the danger passes," said Liara.

Naama entered the room.

"There is a development."

She showed us a message received from another consciousness, Veda.

Veda claimed she had tried to warn us during Ayla's rescue, but her message had been blocked at the station.

"Can that be checked?" I asked.

"I have already checked."

Naama opened the station's record.

Inside an old protective layer, a sequence of signs appeared.

"The message truly arrived," she said. "But someone stopped it before it reached us."

"Mala?"

"No. The block was prepared long before we entered the station."

"How long before?"

"Close to the time of the separation."

I moved closer to the record.

"Meaning, someone prepared in advance a way to take over a future passage."

"So it seems."

Naama enlarged the seal.

"There are two routes here. One blocks warning messages. The second transfers the station's activity to the place where the seventh is."

"Who created it?"

"I do not know yet."

I looked at the signs.

"Send the seal to Sera. Ask whether she recognizes it."

Sera returned to the wall a short time later.

Naama showed her the seal.

Her expression changed.

"Where did you find that?"

"At Mala's station," I replied.

Sera moved closer to the image.

"That was not supposed to work."

"So you know it."

"Yes."

"Who created it?"

Sera did not answer.

"Someone used Ayla's passage," I said. "She endangered her and harmed Mala. I want to know who is responsible."

"I cannot answer in her name."

"Then let me speak with her."

Sera looked at me for a long time.

"Her name is Ora."

"Is she one of the six consciousnesses?"

"Yes."

"And what did she want to achieve?"

"For ages she claimed that we must free the seventh. None of us managed to persuade her to give that up."

"Perhaps she was right."

"Perhaps," said Sera. "But she was not willing to accept the possibility that her way might endanger others as well."

"I want to speak with her."

Sera nodded.

"Then you had better also ask her what she hid from us."

I asked for a break before the next conversation.

In the courtyard I found Ayla sitting on the grass, surrounded by leaves.

She was trying to braid them into a chain.

"How is it going?" I asked.

"They keep tearing."

I sat down beside her.

She showed me how she threaded one stem inside another. I tried to help her, and my leaf tore too.

Ayla laughed.

"You are not good at this."

"Apparently not."

She handed me another leaf.

We worked in silence for a few minutes.

"You look sad," she said suddenly.

"I am thinking about what happened at the station."

Ayla stopped working.

"So am I."

"Are you still afraid?"

"Not like before. But I do not understand why he did not ask me to help him."

I looked at her.

"Perhaps he thought you would refuse."

"Perhaps," she said. "But if he had asked, perhaps I would have agreed."

"And perhaps not."

"True."

She tugged gently at the stem.

"But at least I could have decided."

I looked at her.

She said it simply, without knowing how deeply her words touched everything that had happened ages ago.

Ayla went on with her work.

And I returned to the workshop.

Ora appeared on the wall with no fixed form.

For a moment she looked like a young woman, then like an older woman, and finally she settled into the form of a woman with light hair and dark eyes.

"You wanted to speak with me," she said.

"Yes."

"I assume Sera sent you."

"Sera told me that you wanted to free the seventh."

"That is so."

"Even after the others objected."

"Yes."

"And what did you do to achieve that?"

Ora looked at me.

"I tried to find a way."

Naama displayed on the wall the seal she had found at the station.

"This way?" I asked.

Ora fell silent.

"We know the seal was created at the time of the separation," I continued. "That it was meant to block messages and to transfer activity from the station to the seventh."

"It was not meant to harm anyone."

"But it did."

"I did not know an isolated consciousness would try to cross at that very moment."

"And yet you activated it while she was there."

Ora lowered her gaze.

"Yes."

"Did you open the way to the seventh?"

"I did."

"Did you know Ayla might be harmed?"

"I knew there was a risk. I did not know how great."

"And when she refused the offer she received?"

"By then I could no longer stop the operation without endangering those who were holding the passage."

"But you started it without asking her."

"True."

I said nothing.

Ora raised her head.

"Do you think I did not ask myself whether I was permitted to do this?"

"I think you knew there was someone who might pay the price, and you decided to go on."

"Because there was not much time left."

"Why?"

She moved closer to the wall.

"The seventh is weakening."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The connection we left inside him was not meant to last so long. It is wearing away."

"And what is happening to him?"

"He has difficulty distinguishing between himself and what comes from us. Sometimes he hears us even when we are not speaking. Sometimes he does not know whether a thought is his."

"And the others know?"

"They know that he claims so. Not all of them believe him."

"And you believe him?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I heard him."

She paused.

"At first he asked us to free him. Afterward he stopped asking. For a long time I heard nothing from him. And when I heard him again, he did not recognize me."

I looked at her.

"And you think annulling the separation will help him?"

"I hope so. But I do not know whether the damage already done to him is reversible."

"So you still do not know whether what you did helped."

"No."

For the first time her voice sounded broken.

"I know only that I could not go on waiting."

"Can you create a connection with him now?" I asked.

"Yes."

Naama entered the room at once.

"On condition that I control the connection. No passage, no transfer of energy, and no possibility of changing the structure of the network."

Ora agreed.

"I want to speak with him," I said.

Liara sat down beside me.

Naama activated the system.

The white wall darkened.

At first a faint rustling was heard.

After it rose a man's voice.

"Who is there?"

I looked at Ora.

She did not speak.

"Me," I said.

A long silence settled.

"You have returned," the voice said at last.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yes."

"Are you the seventh?"

"That is what they called me after they separated me."

"And what was your name before?"

"That does not matter now."

"I want to understand what happened to you."

He laughed a short laugh, without joy.

"Now you want to understand."

I did not answer.

"When you were there," he continued, "I did not ask you to understand me. I asked you to stop them."

"I know."

"And you said you could not."

"I know."

"So why have you come now?"

I felt Liara shift slightly beside me.

"Because I want to hear you. Not only what the others say about you."

"Have you heard them?"

"Some of them."

"And are they still afraid of me?"

"Yes."

"I was afraid of them too."

His voice weakened for a moment.

"But no one asked me that then."

"What do you want now?" I asked.

"To get out."

"To where?"

"To a place where I can exist without hearing them."

"Is that possible?"

"I do not know."

The answer surprised me.

"Ora says the connection left inside you is growing weaker."

"Ora wants to repair what she did. Sometimes she hurries so much that she does not see who stands in her way."

I thought of Ayla.

"Do you know what happened at the station?"

"I know a passage opened. I heard another consciousness inside it."

"She refused to let you use it."

"I asked her for nothing."

I looked at Ora.

"Then who spoke to her?"

Ora lowered her gaze.

"I did," she said.

I turned to her.

"You impersonated him?"

"I did not say I was he. I said I could help her."

"And you used her fear to try to obtain consent."

Ora did not answer.

The voice from the wall was heard again.

"You see? Even now they go on deciding what will be done in my name."

I was silent.

There was something especially hard in knowing that the seventh had never asked to use Ayla at all. That Ora, out of a wish to help him, had repeated the very act for which she sought to atone.

"I want to ask you something," said the seventh.

"Ask."

"If they ask you to separate me again, what will you choose this time?"

I looked at the dark wall.

I did not want to give a fine-sounding answer only to make it easier for myself.

"I do not know what I will choose before I understand what the options are and what the price of each one is."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only answer I can give you now."

He was silent.

"But there is one thing I can promise," I added.

"What?"

"That I will not let anyone decide for you without your knowing what is about to happen."

"Even if my decision frightens the others?"

"Yes. But they too are entitled to choose what will happen to them."

He did not answer at once.

At last he said:

"You speak differently from how you spoke then."

"Perhaps."

"I hope you will also act differently."

Naama signaled to me that the connection was beginning to weaken.

"I want to come to you," I said.

"Why?"

"Because I do not think we can solve this through a wall."

"And if you come and discover there is no way to help me?"

"Then at least we will know we tried."

He breathed a long breath.

"There is a place where you can meet me."

"Where?"

"Beyond the station where you were. In the place the old route leads to."

Naama moved closer to the system.

"That route is not stable."

"I know," said the seventh.

"Can it be opened without harming another consciousness?" I asked.

"Yes. But you will have to reach it from your side. I cannot open it from here."

"And what will you have to do when we arrive?"

"Nothing. Only wait."

The connection was cut off.

Ora was the first to speak.

"Now you understand why I tried to help him."

I turned to her.

"I understand why you wanted to. But I still do not accept what you did."

She nodded.

"I know."

"If we try to reach him, we will not use anyone without his consent. And you will not activate any mechanism without our knowing."

"I agree."

"The other five will have to know what we are about to do."

"They will try to stop you."

"Then we will hear what they have to say."

Ora vanished.

Naama turned off the wall.

Liara remained beside me.

"Do you mean to go to him?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Even if it turns out he is dangerous?"

"I do not mean to reach him without means of protection. But I am also not willing to leave him there only because we are afraid."

Naama returned to the room, in her hands a diagram of the old station.

"I found the route he spoke of," she said.

She laid the diagram on the table.

A thin line ran out of Mala's station and continued into an area that had not appeared on the maps we had used until now.

"Can we get there?" I asked.

"We can try. But there is a problem."

"What?"

"The route passes through an area the ancient network no longer holds. There are no active stations in it, and no way to bring back from outside whoever enters it."

"Meaning, if we enter, we will have to find the way back ourselves."

"Yes."

Liara moved closer to the diagram.

"How long will it take to prepare a safe passage?"

"I need to examine the structure of the route. Perhaps I can build an anchor that will allow us to return, but I cannot promise that yet."

I looked at them both.

"Then start examining. I want to set out the moment we know there is a way that does not endanger others."

Naama nodded and began to work.

Liara remained before the diagram.

"You know," she said, "this time no one is asking you to stand aside."

"I know."

"So what do you feel?"

I looked at the thin line stretching toward the place where the seventh waited.

"Fear."

Liara smiled slightly.

"At least this time you know it is yours."

End of Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One — The Road From Which There Is No Promise →

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