The Dark Design

"The stranger then pulled up a stool and sat down by me.

" 'Listen, and then determine for yourself if I am not worth listening to,' he said.

"And he told me a most amazing tale, Jill, the like of which it is evident that you have not heard. He said that he was one of the beings who had resurrected us. They called themselves Ethicals. He would not go into detail about their background or where they came from or anything like that. He did not have enough time for that. In fact, if he were caught-by his own people, mind you-it would be bad indeed for him.

"I had many questions, of course, but when I opened my mouth, he told me to keep quiet and listen. He would visit me again, he said, perhaps more than once. Then he would answer most of my ques­tions. Meanwhile, I was to understand this! We had not been given life so that we could live forever. We were just subjects of scientific experiments, and when the experiments were finished, we would be finished. We'd die for the last time, forever."

"What kind of experiments?"

"Well, it was more than just experiments. It was also a historical project. His people wanted to collect data on history, on anthropolo­gy, and so forth. They were also interested in finding out what kind of societies we humans would form when we were so mixed togeth­er. How would people change under certain conditions?

"He said that many groups would be allowed to develop without any interference from his people at all. But some would be influ­enced, some subtly, some by more outright methods. The project would take a long time, perhaps several hundred years. Then it would be finit for the project and finit forus. Back to dust we would go-forever.

"I said, "That does not sound so ethical to me, sir. Why do they deny to us what they have-eternal life?'

"He said, 'That is because they are not truly ethical. Despite their high opinions of themselves, they are cruel, as the scientist who tortures animals to advance science is cruel. But he has his justifica­tions, his rationalization.

' "You see, the scientist is doing some good, being ethical in one sense. It is true that as a result of this project, a few of you will become immortal. But only a few.'

" 'How is that?' I said.

"And then he told me about the entity which the Church of the Second Chance calls the ka. You know of this, Jill?"

Jill said, "I've attended many of their lectures."

"Then you know all about the ka and the akh and the other stuff. This person said that the Chancer's theology was partly true. Mainly because one of the Ethicals had visited the man called La Viro and had thus caused him to found the Church."

"I thought that was just one of the wild tales those vision­aries had invented," Jill said. "I didn't put any more credence in it than I did in the ravings of Earth prophets. Moses, Jesus, Zoroaster, Mohammed, Buddha, Smith, Eddy, the whole sick crew."

"No more did I," Cyrano said. "Though, when I was dying, I did repent. But that was to make my poor unhappy sister and my friend Le Bret happy. Besides, it couldn't hurt if I made a deathbed conversion. And, to tell the truth, I was scared of hellfire. After all..."

"Your childhood conditioning."

"Exactly. But here was a being who said that there was such a thing as a soul. And I had proof positive that there could be a life after death. Still, I could not help wondering if I was the butt of a joke. What if this man were just one of my neighbors, pretending to be a visitor from the gods, as it were? I would believe him, and then tomorrow I would be laughed at. What? De Bergerac, the rational­ist, the atheist, to be taken in so completely by this fantastic tale?

"But... who would do this to me? I knew no one who would have the motive or the means for such a joke. And what about the drug which made Livy sleep and which paralyzed my legs? I had never heard of such a drug. Also, where would a practical joker get that sphere which enclosed his head? There was just enough light to see that it was black and opaque. Still...

"And then, as if he perceived my lack of belief, he handed me a lens of some material. 'Put this in front of your eye,' he said. 'Look at Livy.'

"I did so, and I gasped with astonishment. Just beyond the top of her head was a globe of many colors. It shone brightly, as if illuminated by itself. It spun and swelled and expanded and put out arms from time to time, six-sided tentacles, and these shrank back into the globe arid then other arms came out.

"The being then reached out and told me to drop the lens into his hand. He did not say so, but it was evident that he did not want me to touch him. I obeyed, of course.

"The lens went back into his cloak, and he said, 'What you saw is the wathan. That is the immortal part of you.'

"Then he said, 'I have chosen a few of you to help me fight against this monstrous evil my people are committing. I picked you because of your wathans. You see, we can read wathans as easily as you can read a children's book. A person's character is reflected in his wathan. Perhaps I shouldn't say reflected, since the wathan is the character. But I don't have the time to explain that. The point is, only a minute fraction of humanity will reach the final, the desired ultimate stage, of wathanhood, unless humanity is given much more time.'

"He then went on to sketch what the Chancers expound in such detail. That the unfulfilled wathan of a dead person wanders through space forever, containing all that is human but uncon­scious. Only the complete evolved wathan has consciousness. And this stage is attained only by those who achieve an ethical perfection while alive. Or near perfection, anyway.

" 'What?' I said. "The ultimate in attaining ethical perfection is to wander like a ghost through space, to bounce off the walls of the universe like a cosmic handball, back and forth, yet be conscious of this horrible state and unable to communicate with anyone but one's self? That is a desirable state?'

' "You must not interrupt,' the stranger said. 'But I will tell you this. The being who attains perfect wathanhood or akhhood, goes beyond. He does not stay in this world. He goes beyond!'

" 'And where?' I said, 'is beyondT

" 'To go beyond is to be absorbed into the Overwathan. To become one with the only Reality. Or God, if you wish to name the Reality that. To become one of God's cells and to experience the eternal and infinite ecstasy of being God.'

"I was more than half-convinced then that I was dealing with an insane pantheist. But I said, 'And this absorption means the loss of one's individuality?'

" 'Yes,' he said. 'But you then become the Overwathan, God. To trade your individuality, your self-consciousness, for that of the Supreme Being is surely no loss. It is the greatest gain possible, the ultimate.'

' "It is horrible!' I cried. 'What kind of monstrous joke is this that God plays on His creatures? How is the afterlife, immortality, any better than death?

" 'No! It does not make sense! Speaking logically, why should the wathan, or the soul, be created in the first place? What sense is there to this creation when most wathans will be wasted, as if they were so many flies hatched only to be eaten or swatted? And those wathans who do survive, in a ma

" 'No, I want to stand as myself, Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, if I am to be immortal. I do not want this spurious immortality, this beingness as an unknowing, brainless cell of God's body! Nameless and brainless!'