"No meaning? Are you saying that time is irrelevant to the working of the bneri?"

"It works outside of time, as thought is outside of time. Therefore you cannot ask 'when' of it." "I don't get it at all," muttered Spence. "Do you?"

"I think so," said Adjani. "Prayer often works the same way. We sometimes see that the seeds of the answer to our prayer have been sown before we even knew to pray. This is possible because God is not confined to time as we are. Past, present, future-he moves through each as he will."

Kyr made a low whistling sound, and translated it for them.

"This God you speak of. He is the All-Being-the Source."

"Yes," replied Adjani. "You know him? You worship him?"

"Worship?"

"It means to revere, to hold worthy, to adore, to praise and love."

Kyr shrugged again. "This, I believe, is implied in living before him. We know him and feel his presence with us at all times."

"It isn't that way on Earth," said Adjani. "Men must choose to know him and worship him of their free will."

"It is the same with us. But who would choose not to know him?" Kyr gave Spence a quick, ironic look.

"You'd be surprised," said Spence.

"I told you once that I would find a way to explain the ways of the All-Being to you. But I see now that there is a barrier between us which I cannot cross. It was placed there by Dal Elna, who made you different from us. My explanations would not satisfy you."

"I believe you, Kyr. For an Earthman, nothing will do unless he finds the All-Being by himself, in his own way."

Just then Gita, who had been silent during this exchange broke in with, "Look! The townspeople from Rangpo are coming. They have seen your vimana. We must hurry away now or we may be here all night."

"We will talk of these things at greater length when time is not important. Now we have work to do," said Kyr. He turned and headed toward his craft. At his approach a red line appeared at the top of the object and slid down along the side, slicing it in two. A brilliant light flooded over them as the two halves parted to receive them. Spence, Adjani, and Gita stepped hesitantly into the light and followed Kyr into the craft.

The people of Rangpo saw four figures disappear inside a red beam of light and then a loud whirring sound filled the air as the unidentified flying object grew suddenly bright orange and then flashed over their heads in an instant, moving over the town toward the mountains to vanish in the clouds.

22

… THE GENTLE EVENING CLOSED around them like a soft and loving hand. The cool air brightened the fire as it crackled under Gita's deft fingers. The deep blue shadows darkened in the forest of green bamboo and the rustlings of monkeys and birds in the trees quieted. Kyr's spacecraft rested a few meters away in a clearing; it gave off a dim bluish glimmer now, its systems shut down for the present.

Gita hovered near the tall alien's shoulder-shyly, nervously, like a schoolboy in the presence of a high dignitary, a schoolboy who did not dream of contributing to the conversation of the adults, yet desired above anything to remain within the charmed circle of their words.

Adjani had not stopped asking questions since they entered the vimana. Ideas between the two were exchanged at such a rapid rate it made the head buzz to think of it. Spence lay back and smiled with a kind of dreamy indulgence as if to say: He is my friend, after all, but I gladly share him with you. It was enough for him to sit basking in the warm friendship of the group, a thing he had not grown overly used to in the course of his stoic life.

He reclined and let the high words and ideas roll over him like the warm breakers on a sunlit beach, rising to a swell and then lapping over him, filling him with happiness and good cheer. It seemed he had been waiting for many years for this special time.

There in the clearing on the mountainside, before the rustic campfire, Spence felt the approach of something he had longed for all his adult life. It was a thing that went by various names, depending upon his frame of mind at the time he felt the longing. Most often he called it certainty, and what he meant by that was the assurance of something absolute and unchangeable in a universe of change.

As a scientist he had long ago given up ever trying to find that immutable absolute; the only law of the universe he knew that could be counted on was change. Hot things lost their heat; cold things grew colder; solid objects became vapor and vice versa; speeding particles slowed; orbits decayed, matter decayed, flesh decayed. Entropy reigned. Nothing remained changeless and unchangeable.

That the immutable absolute he sought might be the Divine Being had never occurred to him. But it came to him now; what is more, he felt a distinct presence drawing inexorably closer. For some reason-perhaps because he was in India-he imagined it in the shape of a great tiger. He felt as if he was being stalked by the fiery ferocious creature; the hair at the base of his skull prickled. A chill wavered along his spine.

Then Kyr stood in the firelight, towering over the group huddled in the yellow circle of light. The conversation had stopped. All Spence heard was the snap of the fire and the evening sounds of the forest.

Kyr looked at each of them in turn, gazing with his great piercing eyes. What he was thinking could not be guessed-the look seemed filled with an emotion beyond Spence's stock catalog of responses.

Kyr began speaking slowly, quietly. "In my world of long ago it was our custom when meeting one another after a long absence, or when leaving for a time, to share a special meal, the Essila. On the evening of our first meeting, before we face what may soon overtake us, I would like to share it with you, my new friends."

With that Kyr went to his spacecraft and entered it, returning a moment later carrying a globe in each hand. These he sat down near the edge of the circle of light and settled his large frame beside them. The Earthmen crept closer.

Kyr took one of the globes and raised it. "In our leaving and arriving we are one. When apart and when together we are one. In the many there is One."

Spence recognized that last phrase as one Kyr had once used in referring to the All-Being.

The globe in Kyr's hands opened from a center seam and the top hemisphere parted to reveal the contents of the interior: a kind of whitish, fluffy, diaphanous substance that looked very much like clouds.

"A body is made of many cells, yet it is one body. A life is made of many days, and yet it is one life. Each man's body and each man's life is a reflection of the One who gave it. In the many there is One."

Kyr held his long hands before the fire and his eyes closed. His voice became almost a chant. Spence knew that if Kyr had been speaking his own tongue the litany would be a song. What Kyr must have been doing to translate it bordered on the miraculous.

"If we mount to the stars, Dal Elna is there. If we descend to the dust of death, Dal Elna is there. Dal Elna is in all things: the stars, the dust, the stones, the fire. Yet these things do not contain Dal Elna. In the many there is One.

"Stars are born and stars die, and Dal Elna knows their passing. In the deeps of space Dal Elna's ways are known. On created worlds and worlds yet to be created Dal Elna's name is sung. Dal Elna calls forth light out of darkness and sets the planets in their orbits. Nothing exists that does not exist in Dal Elna. In the many there is One.

"Before time began, Dal Elna was. When time is gone, Dal Elna will remain. Soon time will cease and the curtains of our minds will be parted and we will see Dal Elna. All living souls will know Dal Elna. In the many there is One."