The Long Road to Gaia Read online

  "What's going on here Twelve? Who are these people?"

  "Just an ordinary Australian family, Thirteen."

  "Why is there no anger here?"

  "These are spiritual people, evolved out of the hostilities of the previous decades. The spiritual movements have begun on the other side of the world, although not yet reached here. But this family already practice what in the future will become much more commonplace. As spiritual becomes more mainstream in the next few decades, they will forge a place in the movements, without giving up on their dreams."

  "Is the boy really going to the stars?"

  "Oh yes. But not quite how he expects."

  "How so?"

  "It will be his son taking him, not him taking his family. The whole family will go though. At least, those alive at the time."

  Twelve looked at me directly.

  "Seen enough?"

  I shook my head, and shifted.

  The room faded.

  Three

  I followed the boy to school several days later, and watched the way humans were interacting with each other.

  Here I found what I was expecting, in both the children and adults.

  Anger, greed, selfishness, arrogance, fear. All the negative emotions were here.

  But so too were all the positive ones. The mix was intriguing. I found it hard to believe so few years could change the world so much.

  I expanded my awareness to cover the whole world. Ah. Things varied from place to place. Here was mainly a peaceful society with few guns evident. There was a society in which guns were obvious and frequently used by ordinary people. The rich dominated some places, poverty dominated others. And then there was politics, causing all sorts of conflict.

  Where was the warfare I expected? Ah, yes, there it was. Strangely isolated to a small area called South East Asia, centered on Vietnam. I willed myself there. I followed groups of troops from all sides of the conflict, watching how they conducted themselves. Brutality and senseless acts there were, but not on the scale of the 1940's.

  I followed the war back to its beginning, and kept going back looking for the one before it. Korea, a small place, also in Asia, with a small conflict which never really resolved anything.

  I kept going back until I hit the end of the Second World War. This is where I'd left the last time I’d been here, vowing not to return. I revisited the atomic bomb blasts which ended this war.

  Strange. Lots of little brushfires since then, but only two wars, neither of which could be called major. Perhaps the nuclear threat had changed the planet, instead of being its obvious destruction?

  I wound time forward slowly, seeking out the key events.

  Hmmm, something they were calling a 'cold war', where belief systems worked against each other without actual warfare. I followed the witch-hunt with the catch cry of 'reds under the beds'. Evil had found a new outlet with this one, but it came to an end without the level of bloodshed I was expecting from it.

  I arrived back at 1969, and let the beginning of that year unfold. An event caught my eye, and I followed a newspaper man forty five years into the future, observing the rise of the mass media and the way it perverted the truth to achieve mass control of beliefs, particularly in regard to politics and elections.

  I watched the rise of serious global pollution, and the way the media gave politicians and rich people the reasons for denial of the real problems, whilst suppressing and ridiculing the truth. On a whim, I shot three hundred years into the future and found a lifeless planet. It wasn’t radiation which killed it, just stupidity. I grinned to myself. Then felt sad for the cats. On the way back, I took note of the space ships heading out, and noted the cat population had gone with them.

  I stopped to watch an event in 2001, fascinated by the 'disaster junkie' syndrome which had gripped much of the world. The media preached the bad news, and the disaster junkies demanded more and more. I watched in sheer amazement as paranoia and fear based politicians made things worse instead of better. But not all was doom and gloom, as the fledgling computer networks allowed people to collectively reject the negativity.

  Back in 1969, I examined the various forms of democracy, communism, socialism, and sundry religious and despot regimes.

  The true evil of the 1930's and 40's was gone, replaced by pockets of petty evil. I looked for the cause and effect, and found most of the evil causing positives, as good flourished from each incident of bad.

  Money caught my attention. The lack mentality of the 20's and 30's, displaced by the war, had turned into prosperity thinking. I followed it forward, observing the Feng Shui energy changes as an obsession with gold changed to an obsession with electronic money, as big metal changed to small metal in 1984, and the rise of the computer changed societies and the way finance was handled. I followed huge sums of money directed into corrupting politics, and electing incompetent and foolish people to office.

  I watched the change to earth energy in 2004, and the rise of western spirituality which followed over the next decade.

  I went backwards through sporting events until I arrived back in a school yard in 1969.

  I caught up with the boy in the playground. He was with a small group of friends, kicking a ball around.

  Off to one side was a smaller group of larger boys. I shifted my perceptions on the obvious leader, who was exhibiting bully behavior patterns. Five earthbound spirits were attached to him, as well as three minor demons, and an Anu. I addressed them as a group and told them to leave the bully immediately. They refused, so I plucked them off him. They moved away and stayed to observe, obviously hoping to be able to reattach later. The expression on the bully's face changed from a sneer to a smile, showing to me how much the attached entities had been affecting the way he was feeling. I moved in close to the bully, and attached myself to him. His smile died.

  I tested my level of control over his mind and body. He was open to suggestion, and I found I didn't need to control his body at all, just whisper to him what I wanted of him. I focused his gaze on the boy, and gave him anger. He started forward on his own, heading for the ball being kicked around, and after pushing one boy over, he kicked the ball high over a wall.

  The boy rounded on him and politely asked why he had done that. The bully seized him by the shirt with his left arm, and thumped him with the fist of the other. A ring of boys quickly surrounded the two combatants.

  The boy showed no fear of the bully, and pulled himself free, stepping back from the next strike. I sent rage into the mind of the bully, and he surged forward. The boy stood his ground, ducking under the wildly thrown fists. His own fist struck the bully solidly in the groin, and he folded up and landed on his side, clutching himself.

  The boy backed away, and stood for a moment, looking down at the bully.

  "I forgive you for attacking me," he said, turning away, and walking briskly toward the school building, his friends following him.

  I calmed the anger of the bully, and let him concentrate on his pain. I left him with the impression that messing with that particular boy in the future was a bad idea, and pain was going to be his only reward if he did.

  Detaching from him, I followed after the boy, seeing the entities I'd pulled off the bully begin to reattach themselves.

  Once in the safety of the building, the boys found seats.

  "Where did you learn to do that?" asked one boy.

  "Nowhere," said the boy. "I figured I needed to put him down as fast as possible before he hurt me, and so I hit him where it hurts the most while I could."

  "Why didn’t you hit him again when he was down?" asked another.

  "No need. All I had to do was put him down and walk away. Anything else is retaliation, and only makes things worse in the long run."

  "Aren't you afraid he'll come after you again?" asked the first boy.

  "Not really. He might. Or he might not. It's really up to him. I'm hoping he'll just go find an easier target next time."

  I left th
em talking. I’d expected a full scale brawl, but instead had seen wisdom in a child, who had done enough, and only enough, to get himself out of a bad situation.

  In spite of myself, I realized I liked this kid. His world had improved a great deal since the last time I’d been there, and although I didn’t like a lot of the near future, I had to admit that humans seemed to have learned some things from the war, and a change had begun in them.

  Was it enough for me to care? No. Not about humans as a species. Not yet. But this boy and his family, yes, they were worth further study, if nothing else.

  I skipped ahead again, sneaking peaks into the boy's future. He did well at school, joined the air force, and flew fighter jets. In 1980, his son was born. Father taught son about the stars, and the need to be the best of the best to get there. The son also did well at school, and joined the Navy. This seemed an odd choice to me, since the son was a much better combat pilot than his father in the computer games they were both playing. By 2015, when I hit a time wall preventing me following this family any further, the son was an officer on a submarine. Now his choice made sense. Neither father nor son were called upon to fight a war, but both had excellent performance ratings. I'd noticed some frustration from the father at his inability to break into the American space shuttle program, but it was channeled into being the best officer he could be. Not yet at retirement age, his career was still on the rise, even though he was no longer flying combat fighters.

  I pondered the time wall, and came to the conclusion it was part of the meeting's time lock, designed to give me a taste, but not the whole story.

  I willed myself back to the meeting room.

  Four

  The others looked as if they hadn't moved. Most likely they hadn't. Time for us is fluid. We could live a millennium, and still be back here an eye blink after leaving. Actually, that was a good thought. Maybe a millennium would give me some time to think, and time to drop in on more of the future, so I could see firsthand how humans developed over the next six hundred years. I wondered why I hadn't. It was already too late. The time lock again, I suspected.

  "So," said One. "Has your opinion of humans altered at all?"

  I thought about it. Certainly, I'd not seen what I'd expected.

  "One family doesn’t demonstrate what the species as a whole is like," I said at last.

  "True," said Kali. "But this family will be the flag bearer for the human race as it launches itself to the stars. Even if they are not representative of all human kind, are they not worth looking after?"

  "Perhaps. Do they need to be looked after?"

  "At times," said Ganesha, "yes. Their future is a slender thread in the tapestry of the galaxy. If the thread breaks, the tapestry will unravel."

  "So what if it does?"

  "Darkness will fall," said One. "I've seen it. I won't allow it to happen."

  "What is darkness to me?" I responded. "I'm a dark matter nebulae after all. Most things in the galaxy are light compared to me."

  "There is darkness," said Four, "and there is Darkness. Dark it is between the light of the suns, and we the nebulae which light the spaces between the suns, while birthing new suns. But darkness of the soul is something much different, and it is this darkness which threatens to overrun the lesser species of the galaxy. For now, it is contained. This will not always be so."

  "Why don’t you do the work to ensure it remains contained?"

  "All of us will," said Two. "But only you can keep the thread intact."

  "This family are so important?"

  "The family as such," said Kali, "no. But a few of them across six hundred years, yes."

  "Why not just drop me in at the needed times?"

  "Because time is fluid," said One. "Only by following it forward will you be in the right place, at the right time, to subtly effect its flow, and keep the thread intact. And besides, as previously said, eventually you will be asked to intervene, and only by taking this journey in full, will you understand your role when it counts the most."

  "I don’t like being used this way."

  "We know," said Twelve. "But it is necessary."

  I looked at them without saying anything. They looked back at me.

  I sighed. Damn, that was a human mannerism. I was already being sucked into this. Undoubtedly this was why the meeting was time locked, so the human form could influence me just by being locked into it.

  "Fine. I'll babysit this family for you."

  "We knew you would," said One.

  "The boy I just saw, the one who thinks he's going into space? What's his name?"

  Kali smiled.

  "Hunter," she said. "Jonathon Hunter."

  2016

  One

  The middle aged man stepped out of the taxi in front of the hotel. His hair was thinning, his short beard was grey, and he was no longer the thin athletic build of his youth. His head ached, and he was tired from the journey.

  He looked around. The main street was almost empty, of anything. A couple of cars further up, was all. A few people, dressed in white, walking. Opposite the hotel was an empty field, with a sign in Portuguese. Parking lot, I whispered to him. The road was pretty normal, but the field was brown clay.

  Further down the road, there was a lot of white and blue paint, and another sign. He couldn’t read it at this distance, but he could guess what it said. It was after all, why he was here.

  The taxi driver unloaded his cases, and they moved inside. The receptionist didn’t speak any English, but he was the only one checking in, so there wasn’t a problem.

  Until she tried to lead him upstairs. He made no-no noises, and she sighed heavily, and went back to get a different key. She led him out the back of the building to a row of single story rooms, overlooking the large front garden of the house next door. It was overgrown, and a workman was using a whipper snipper to do the job of a ride on mower.

  Noise. Just what he needed.

  The room had not been prepared, so he had to wait a short while, as sheets and towels appeared, and things were made ready.

  On the plane, he'd read '101 Tips for the John of God Brazil Experience'. For the fourth time. He tested the shower. One quarter turn, as the book suggested. Hot water, yes. One full turn, the water went through warm and turned cold. Exactly the opposite of home, where you turned the tap on full to get hot water. Chalk one up for the book, he thought.

  The room was basic. More than one star, but not quite up to two star. The bed was hard, and the base squeaked as he sat on it. He sighed, and wondered why he'd come.

  Left alone, the drone going on outside, he lay down, and went to sleep.

  Two

  Twelve was sitting at the table when I appeared in our meeting place. I shook my head. He was at the far end of the table, where he'd been during our first meeting here.

  I sat in my chair on the other side of the table, and waved to the chair opposite me. He balked, and I waved again, more emphatically this time. So far, he hadn't shifted each time we met, and the conversation had been held down half the length of the table.

  Twelve hesitated, looked around as if to see if anyone would mind if he moved, and reluctantly sat opposite me.

  Neither of us spoke for a time.

  "So," we both said together.

  I held a hand out, palm up, giving him the go to speak first.

  "He got there okay?"

  "Yes. It was a grueling trip, but he made it. The cabin staff on two of the flights are going to remember that flight for a long time."

  "Make sure he sticks to the rules."

  "I know."

  "The stakes are high, Thirteen. Don’t make any mistakes."

  "I know."

  "He's only fifty five. He won't see his life's ambition until he's in his early eighties. It is essential he lives that long."

  "I know."

  "The Entities are ready for him. They know what he needs, better than he does."

  "I know."

  "See he follo
ws the rules."

  "I KNOW!"

  "Calm down Thirteen."

  I sighed.

  I knew all this. I didn't need it rammed down my human throat.

  "I'm loosely attached to him. He doesn’t know I'm there. But except for the salad on the plane I told him not to eat, he normally follows what I suggest. He'll get told. Trust me. Anything else?" I asked.

  "No, I just wanted to make sure you understood."

  "Fine. Can I go now?"

  "Yes."

  I left behind a small cloud of purple smoke, just for the effect.

  Three

  The sign said "Casa De Dom Inacio." All was blue and white. The buildings were blue near the ground, and white for the top half. The people all wore white.

  He stood there, in front of rows of seats, looking into the main hall. More rows of seats, mostly full. As he looked around, he noticed they were all occupied, both inside and out. He wasn’t late. People must get here early.

  At the front of the main hall, was a raised area. At the back of it, was a wooden triangle. Someone was leaning against it, arms laid up the wooden sides.

  Suddenly, everything changed.

  He was standing in the middle of nowhere. The clay was the same colour, as were the clumps of grass and small bushes.

  There was nothing at all around him. No buildings, no people, no roads, no sign of anything familiar. He was alone in the wilderness.

  Not quite nothing, and not quite alone.

  Some way away, was some sort of ship, which he could only call bizarre in shape. Near it was a pretty girl in a one piece dark red overall, which looked rather like it was leather.

  Now he noticed, he was wearing the same thing himself. And suddenly he wasn’t, now wearing a white suit.

  Abruptly, he was back at the Casa, wearing the white pants and t-shirt he'd put on that morning for the first time.

  He swayed in place for a moment, disoriented.

  "Are you okay Jon?" asked the lady in white standing beside him.