47

"That's Mr. Pike?"

"Yes. He is a great power among his people. Much greater than I. You know how to survive against forces much greater than you. You are the teacher and I am the dunce. Without you there can be no future for anyone."

And even there, in my greatest danger, I felt the urgency in John's words.

"Deep under the ground in your world there is a kind of metal," John continued. "It looks like green powder but when it is spun at a great speed it starts spi

"And Andrew Pike want that green powder?"

"Yes. He wants to make it spin and blow up everything."

"Why would somebody wa

"Because," John said, "in another place beyond the world where we see and breathe there is a river of consciousness "

"That's what you said before. But what do the countesses river got to do with green powder?"

"Not countess but consciousness psi what thoughts and dreams are made of," John explained. "You and I and all of my people and all of yours "

"You mean Champ and Mama Flore too?" I asked.

"And Tobias and Eloise," John added.

I didn't say anything but I was surprised that John saw Tobias and me as belonging to the same people as if we

were the same race. This set off a way of thinking that was more alien to me than anything I had experienced up until that point.

"So all of us are here but at the same time our idees an' our dreams is swimmin' in this river?" I asked.

"Exactly. It is in a place beyond space and time. It is another place that ca

"Except if'n you spin that green powder," I added.

"No, but that's what Wall believes," John said in the dark.

"An' this Wall is also Andrew Pike?" I asked.

"Yes. His people, after they split off from our race, developed a taste for the small trace of spirit that makes its way into our bodies. They suck out the energy and souls of sentient beings for their sustenance. But they're greedy; they yearn to obtain the Upper Level where they can feast on the God-Mind."

"So all this man Pike, who really is Wall, gotta do is dig down an' git that green powder an' then everything gets blowed up?" I asked, trying to string together all he'd said.

"No," John said. "First he must acquire a machine. When Wall got here he sent off a message telling his people to send this machine from a colony they have in this galaxy. When it arrives it will be able to mine and then spin the green powder. Wall and the Calash believe that this will open the universe to their perverse appetites."

"How long before it gets here?"

"One hundred and eighty-seven years."

"We all be dead by then," I said, thinking that John and I would probably be dead before the next day dawned.

"Maybe so," John said, "and maybe not. But regardless there is another quicker way that he might attain the green powder."

"What's that?" I asked.

Listening to his story I forgot my situation. I was more worried about that green powder than I was about the bugs biting me and the heat sweating me to death.

"I came here in an extremely powerful craft called the Sun Ship," he said. "The engine of that ship can be altered to help Wall excavate the green powder. Wall must not have it."

"And you took this ship on the Universe Ocean to come here?"

"Yes."

I didn't even understand most of the words he said. But I could feel the urgency in his tone. I could feel his fear. And even though I was in dire trouble myself I worried about my friend and my world.

We stayed in that hotbox all day. After a few hours I began to swoon in and out of consciousness.

"I think I'd like to go up north now," I said to John once when I had awakened.

"I can't take us for a while," he said. "My power was greatly weakened by the healing of Eloise. I won't be able to flee or even unlock these chains for a day or two."

What could I say? He'd only saved Eloise because I had asked him to. It was my fault just as much as his that we were in the Tomb.

While we wasted away in the hot stench of our prison I worked my wrists around in the manacles. My sweat made the skin so slick that I was finally able to slip free.

"John."

No answer.

"John."

A slight moan sounded from where my friend lay in the pitch black of our prison closet.

"John, I got my hands free," I said. "Maybe you could too. Maybe we could get outta here an' run."

"Too… weak…," he whispered. "Too… hot…"

"But you gotta try," I pleaded. "If we don' get free an' run mastuh go

"No master…," he choked, and could not finish the admonition.

I reached out and touched his shoulder. I could tell that he was slumped backward, hanging down in his chains. This was the first time I had been with Tall John that he was helpless. I realized then that he was a person just like I was, that he could suffer and need help too.

This was yet another major moment in my young life. There I was in chains and still I was worried for my friend. I was trying to get free so that I could steal us both away from Tobias.

That's what ru

Somewhere in my mind I realized that it was absurd to think that a person could steal himself. But I also knew that if I told a white man these thoughts I would be put instantly to death, so I couldn't share my rebellious ideas with other slaves.

Deep in my mind an even more radical thought had begun to form. I realized that I was free even though I was clamped in chains and locked away. I was free because I had made the decision to run away if I could. Most of the slaves on the Corinthian Plantation would never actually try to run away. They knew that they'd probably get caught and whipped or worse. And I could see that the real chains that the slave wore were the color of his skin and the defeat in his mind. Neither master nor nigger be, Tall John had said from the first moments we met. There in the worst aspect of my slavery I came to fully understand those words' meaning.

I felt the thrill of freedom in my heart. "John," I said. "John, I understand. I know what you been sayin'. I ain't got no mastuh 'cause I ain't no slave."

He sighed in the darkness but made no words that I could understand. John's weakness set off a great trepidation in my heart. I believed that only he could understand the freedom that I had just come to realize. Without him I would be as lost as he was on the ocean called Universe.

"John, how can I help you?"

"Touch…"

"What?"

"Touch my head… with your hands," he said.

I reached out and felt around until I could feel the pulse in his temples. One beat, two beats, three beats, four… and then there came a bright yellow light that filled our foul cell. I could see John sagging down in his chains with his eyes closed and his breath coming fast and short like the panting of a winded dog.

Then I was gone from the tomb and free from my bonds. John and I were sitting side by side in crudely built rocking chairs out in front of a small, ramshackle cabin that stood on a rise looking down over a pine forest. There were larks singing and fat clouds floating in the blue sky overhead. John was there next to me.

At first I thought that I had swooned and fallen into a dream.

"No," Tall John from beyond Africa said, answering my thought. "You are not dreaming. We are here together in our minds."

"Where are we?" I asked John. "I don't know. Don't you recognize this place?" Suddenly I realized that we were in front of Britisher Bill's place; a cabin that Una Turner's father had given to the slave, Britisher Bill, when he earned his freedom. I used to go there with Big Mama Flore and Mud Albert when I was very small. Master Tobias would send us with a basket of food that the old master had promised to deliver to Britisher Bill every fourth Sunday for the rest of his life.