(Devil, Shin)

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"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

"And God said: 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.' And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

"And God said: 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas; and God saw that it was good . . . ."

• Genesis, 1:1-10

"And God said: 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;' . . . And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. . . . Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

• Genesis, 1: 26-27; 2:7-9

"There was a man in the land of Uz (OUCh), whose name was Job (AiYUBh) and that man was whole-hearted and upright, and one that feared God, and shunned evil. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His possessions also were seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels. . . . Now it fell upon a day, that the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan: 'Whence comest thou?' Then Satan answered the Lord, and said: 'From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.' And the Lord said unto Satan: 'Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a whole-hearted and an upright man, one that feareth God and shunneth evil?' Then Satan answered the Lord, and said: 'Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not Thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath, on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions are increased in the land. But put forth Thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, surely he will blaspheme Thee to Thy face.' And the Lord said unto Satan: 'Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand.' So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord."

• Job, 1:1-12

BAAD ANGARRU! NINNGHIZHIDDA!

UUG UDUUG UUGGA GISHTUGBIIA IA IA NNGI BARRA IA!

IARRUGISHGARRAGNARAB!

GIBIL KUTULU ZI KUR HUMWAWA PAZUZU AZAG-THOTH

IGIGI ERISHKIGAL EN ABSU KAKHTAKHTAMON

• phrases from NECRONOMICON

"'Hallo!' said Piglet, 'what are you doing?'

'Hunting,' said Pooh.

'Hunting what?'

'Tracking something,' said Winnie-the-Pooh very mysteriously.

'Tracking what?' said Piglet, coming closer.

'That's just what I ask myself, I ask myself, What?'

'What do you think you'll answer?'

'I shall have to wait until I catch up with it.'

• Winnie-the-Pooh, 'Pooh and Piglet Hunt'

"'What did it look like?'

'Like - like, . . . It had the biggest head you ever saw. . . . A great enormous thing, like - like nothing. A huge big - well, like a - I don't know - like an enormous big nothing. Like a jar.'"

• Winnie-the-Pooh, 'Piglet Meets a Heffalump'

"We has found the enemy, and he is us."

• Pogo

The door to our suite opened, and Peho and company entered. The realization flowed into our minds: "It is time to go. We will escort you to your ship on the flight deck. Gather your belongings and follow us."

There was scurrying as we checked the rooms and stuffed the cards and books and other personal belongings back into the packs and made sure we were properly dressed. Then we walked down a corridor to a small two-car shuttle train. We strapped in and whizzed along for about five minutes until we settled into another berth similar to the one we had left. We unstrapped and walked down another corridor. Peho opened the security door, and we found ourselves in a spacious room that was obviously an underground hangar. One entire wall was a huge sliding door. In the center of the room was a large object that looked just like the strange drawing on the tunnel side of the door to Stan's hot tub room back in Pandora. The object was a sphere about fifteen feet in diameter with a metallic skin. It was supported on tripod struts about five feet off the ground. A hatch in the underbelly hung open, and a chain ladder with metal rungs hung down to within a foot of the floor.

Thoughts from Peho flowed. "This is an old style scout, sturdy and reliable. We use this because of your inexperience and comparatively heavy body weight. The pods retract after lift off. During flight the ship is not seen unless it slows or hovers for observation. To an outside observer there is a field distortion effect that creates an appearance that the central portion of the sphere has bulged out like a flattened disk in the middle, like the shape of a galaxy viewed edgewise. This is a bending of the light around the craft, somewhat like the mirage effect that produces the illusion of water floating in the air over a sunny desert. Based on this the Aten flying disc has become the galactic symbol for all those who pilot space craft. Actually, in outer space ships may have many other shapes. But for planetary scouts, we find this is an efficient design. Your LEM was a crude model based on our scout, although it still used primitive rocket power. You might think of this sphere as a VR environment with a difference - it produces an actual shared reality for the group, within certain limitations. Phyllo and Kara will assist you in flying the craft. So now we take our leave and wish you all success on your journey."

Peho and his companions bowed in parting salutation and silently left the hangar. When the door had clicked shut behind the departing Zetas, Phyllo spoke.

"Before we activate the vehicle, we must align on our destination and purpose. As I understand the mission, our destination is Sabutai's headquarters near Tash Kurghan. Our purpose is to confront Sabutai and persuade him to stop his terrorist activities, and to end the practice of international terrorism. Is that correct?"

We all nodded in agreement.

"Am I also correct in assuming that we will defend ourselves if attacked, but are not intent on aggressive action against Sabutai and his people?" Again we agreed.

"Good. Now comes the seating arrangement. There are six swiveling bucket seats in the craft, set in a star-tet-shaped bridge. The women will sit over the edge lenses - Rivah over the piezo-electric lens, Ky over the carbon lens, and Kara over the correlation lens. That will be in the three upper vertices of the female tetrahedron. The men will sit between the women under the edges from the central apex gravity lens that govern the interaction of gravity with the other three forces - Derek under interpretation, Noah under imagination, and myself under focussed attention. It is important that we all remain aligned with honesty and integrity. When the ship activates into flight, matter transforms to light, and objects to thought patterns. The crew will observe the probability wave function of the destination, with attention focussed on the desired outcome, freed from the current here and now reality, and interpreting the data as the intended outcome, causing the wave function to collapse into material reality as the destination. The light will phase into matter, thought patterns into objects, and we will resume our individual paths of desire. We will put attention on the here and now of our destination, releasing attention from the then and there of where we came from, and interpreting the new reality as what we actually intended. And we will be there."

He gestured toward the hatch, and we began ascending the ladder one at a time. The ladder and hatch were slightly off center, and I noticed, as I climbed in, a pole that formed an axis through the center of the sphere. Phyllo went first and directed each person to the proper seat. I was surprised that the chainlike ladder held rigid as we climbed in. When we were aboard, Phyllo pressed a release button. The ladder went limp and retracted into the hull, and the hatch swung shut. The inside of the ship was very simple and reminded me of the Stargate. I found myself facing Rivah with Kara on my left and Ky on my right. We were close enough together that we nearly touched knees, but had enough space that we could swivel around in the seats and look out the small view ports behind our heads. The star-tet form was outlined with struts that supported the hull and on which the seats and the equipment were mounted. The women sat in the three wings of the female, or inverted tet, and the men sat slightly lower in the feet of the upright male tet. Under our seats there were compartments to stow our bags, and between the starpoints of the struts were instrument panels behind which no doubt were operating components of the craft related to the drive and navigation systems. Three of the lenses were located under the seats of the ladies. The fourth was in the central apex.

Phyllo explained that we would activate a virtual reality bubble by pulling the anti-graviton of the self-interacting graviton lens pair down the central axis tube. This was like pulling an arrow back on a bow. This would place the ship in a virtual black hole hyperspace. Then we would hitch the donkey to the cart, he said smiling. This is an old technology, much like your horse and buggy vehicles of a hundred years ago. We do not use horses or mules. We use mantoids. Or rather, they use us. I mentioned that each lens is made of the substrate for the physical form of a particular type of being. The craft in a sense is alive. The mantoids are among the oldest and most powerful of all beings. The mantis is essentially a mental gravity being, but it has a large tetrahedral head that protrudes into the physical realms of other beings and feeds on their experiences through the lenses. It has two large eyes, one of boson plasma, and one of Fullerene organic material. Its mandible is a sensitive antenna that feeds on crystal vibrations. The mantoid awakens in the ship's lens harness and transports us to our destination, just like a child picks up a toy soldier and places him on his model fort. We get where we want to go, and we entertain and feed the mantis that lives in hyperspace relative to us. For us it is a useful symbiosis. We do not know their motives for cooperation with us. Nor do we ask. We simply enjoy the benefits. Now strap your seat belts and bring your attention easily to our destination, while looking into the eyes of the person across from you."

He picked up a device that looked like a TV remote or a garage opener and flipped some switches on it. We felt a vibration, and Phyllo explained that the hangar doors were opening and the slab on which the ship rested was moving us out of the hangar for take off. In a few minutes the vibration ceased. We were clear of the hangar. The ship's internal lighting dimmed, and then a flash faded from indigo back through the spectrum. My stomach felt a powerful nausea, but not from a sense of physical acceleration. The lenses activated, and we shifted into hyperspace. Everything went red, and then blackness was everywhere. After a moment I became aware that in the blackness was actually a fine grainy light - tiny twinkling flashes.

Suddenly I felt a presence, as if eyes were watching me. They seemed to be disembodied eyes, or a kind of watchingness. "Those are Arcturan Igigi," came a faint whisper of Kara-Phyllo mind stuff. "They hang out in this region, and their presence accounts for the graininess of the hyperspace. And the machinery of the ship definitely felt alive. Strangely, there was no sensation of motion, even though I knew that relative to the outside observer, these craft were reported to accelerate at phenomenal rates and make sudden turns. I recalled that our bodies must now be dispersed in the form of phase waves, able to move at any speed with no inertial consequences.

In a fleeting moment I felt that I was vast and unbounded, free from all time and space. Then there was a layer of turbulence, as when an aircraft passes through a cloud layer as it begins its descent. The difference was that this was an emotional- psychic disturbance rather than a physical vibration. Then I shuddered and felt myself slipping into overwhelm and fear. I had the impression that I was being watched and toyed with by creatures beyond my comprehension in a cauldron of unimaginable chaos. With effort I recalled the injunction of the Hitchhiker's Guide: 'DON'T PANIC.'

Our virtual black hole was now undergoing its stage of Hawking evaporation. An insane rush of thoughts and feelings exploded outward from an invisible point in the center of my mind.

Then, suddenly, light returned to normal. "We are here," said Phyllo matter-of-factly.

Rivah burst into a combination of tears and laughter at the same time. "I don't believe it! Why it's the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show!'"

Noah laughed his wild laugh when he heard this, and Ky was silent. Phyllo and Kara had no idea what she was talking about. Nor did I.

"What's that?" I said, looking across at her flushed face and wet tear streaks.

"Oh, it's not that really. It's just, well, it's sort of like that. When the ship did what it did just now, it was like going back to the beginning of creation, back to God creating the Heavens and the Earth. Except that I suddenly saw it was all like the 'Rocky Picture Show' which is a take off on horror movies turned into a camp musical comedy in which the audience participates. It's sort of the reverse of an Elizabethan masque where the actors wear masks and then at the end of the show take them off and party with the audience. In 'Rocky' the audience puts on outrageous masks and costumes and then parties with the movie. The show starts with this giant red pair of lips with tongue and teeth on a black screen, and the tongue starts singing. That's the letters Peh, Qoph, and Shin showing off."

"Funny," I thought to myself. "When I put my attention on the phrase, 'Don't Panic,' my mind's eye was filled with this green disc in a black sky that had a red tongue sticking out from it and flapping."

"The 'Rocky' story itself is schlocky horror and sex, which is not the point. What I just realized is that that image at the start of the show is the RaQYO, it's Rocky! I always wondered why in the world they called it the ROCKY horror picture show. There are no rocks and there is no one named Rocky. Well, it's right there in Genesis. God places something called a RaQYO, usually translated as a 'firmament,' in the midst of some MaYiM, usually called 'waters.' Now the word RQYO means a background or overlay in Hebrew. It is the Islamic veil, the ShiYT, I guess that's our word 'sheet.'"

"Is that what they mean when they say, 'Sheet happens?'" commented Noah with another wild laugh.

"No, really," continued Rivah in a wide-eyed babble. "What if the waters were not only literal waters, but Maya, a kind of illusion or picture show? And what if maybe there really is a group of beings, called Mayans, who use water (M) and light (Y) to engineer magical entertainment shows in the form of a weird assortment of plants and animals living in a bio-sphere. Carbon in Hebrew is "a#hMaN, a name which describes the carbon life form, DNA, spiraling helical ladders immersed in water. And the RaQYO is a powerful (R) spherical lens (O) that focuses (Q) light rays (Y) on water (MaYiM.)

"What if there were Mayans above the RaQYO and Mayans below it. The ones above it were OL (above), or AL, so they were called the Elohim. The ones below it were Ta#haT (below), and were the followers of Thoth, the Egyptian god Te#huT.

"Now maybe I'm nuts, but the first letter of the Bible is not B, as everybody thinks it is, it's A. It sits right there at the top of the text, the number 1. Right after it is the letter B. Together that's Alpha-Bet, the alphabet, the word AB, 'father.'

"It says A. B RAShYT, 'in the beginning.' But it also says, B RASh YT, 'In the head is a jot.'

"The letters all came from the jot, as in jots and tittles. A jot is the letter Yod. But RA is the Sun god, and ShiYT is the veil. 'In Ra's veil.' Elohim sounds to me like a group of female Elim. An AeL is a divine guide. Why females? Why do the Shiite women wear the veil? Is it to hide their sexuality or to commemorate a secret?

"This collective Elohim BRA, creates in the head, in the body of RA, in the light of consciousness, heavens and earth. But the word for heavens ShaMaYiM may just mean names, SheMiYM. All the names for everything in the world are made up in the head from the letters of the alphabet. The earth is stimulated light (AeR-eC), but it is unformed and void of any meaning, and therefore is indistinguishable from darkness.

"Then the powerful spirit RUaH of the Elohim hovers over the waters, or has a meeting with the Mayans, and the Elohim say, 'Let's let this stuff be light.' They give the unformed light stimulus a name, a label. The word RaQYO is a permutation of YQRA, 'called something a name.' This divides things up into light and dark.

"The Mayans who stay above the lens are supposed to be un-named Elohim. Those below are named creations under the dominion of Thoth, lord of writing, and the underworld of the dead, the world of literature, which only preserves the mummies of living experiences.

"And then the Elohim gather these Thothian Mayans together at one place and call them 'ocean.' YaM - that's the Mediterranean Ocean that ODysseus and Aeneas and the Phoenician alphabet founding fathers adventured in. It's like the Indian 'Ocean of Stories,' the Kathasagitsara.

"Maybe the Phoenicians went all the way to Mexico just like the Mormons believe. So the beings above are called MaY and the ones below are called YaM, and this shows that passing through the RaQYO horror show lens reverses them, like what we have just experienced. The Elohim see RA, the light AUR. That's why I felt the sense of chaos as I went through the lenses. I think that all the four lenses are just transformations of a single lens principle."

"That is correct," said Phyllo matter-of-factly glossing over her babble. He threw the switch that opened the hatch. A gush of cold air came in through the gaping hole and brought us back from the tattered shreds of tangled theories to the reality of our situation.

We unfastened our seat belts, gathered our packs, and descended the ladder. The ship was standing on its tripods in a broad, rocky defile, like a giant frozen gash in the earth. The land was bleak, barren, and dry, except for patches of snow in the rugged clefts. The sun had already passed beyond the rim and shadows were creeping up. We pulled sweaters and jackets out of our packs and donned them shivering. I scanned down the defile and saw a team of camel drivers in fur caps and moccasin boots working their way up a narrow trail. The scene might have been a thousand years ago. The camel drivers ignored us and continued to move their caravan along up the defile.

"They must have seen us," I said. "Why don't they react?"

"They know we're not going anywhere far on foot, and if we take off in the ship, there's no sense in them chasing us on foot with camels," replied Noah. "We need them, not the other way around."

Phyllo added: "I have activated the security shield. The ship will not operate for anyone but us. We will not see any significant above ground activity around here. All of that is further west over near Baikhonur. Here most of the activity is underground, just as you saw in the U.S. The local Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Afghan herdsmen and caravan drivers patrol the area on foot and horseback. It is also scanned by radar, which is limited around here because of the roughness of the terrain. But reconnaissance helicopters and satellites watch the whole area for any unauthorized movements. So they have already detected us since before we even entered their air space. They know where we are, although the ship right now does not show up on radar or satellite. They are tracking us, either visually or through infrared. The welcoming party should arrive pretty soon."

Right on cue, brrrrr, a burst of automatic weapon fire echoed through the canyon. Brrrrr. Dust and rock chips kicked up around us. For all my practice at Sangre de Cristo I suddenly felt scared and started ducking. There was no forest cover, so I rushed over to press myself against the side of the canyon. These bullets were out of my control and not directed at us by friends, either.

Noah chuckled, "Don't worry. They're not going to shoot you, yet. That's just their way of getting your attention around here." The camel drivers continued on their way, ignoring the whole scene, like any normal New York pedestrians do during a mugging.

"Well, they've got it all right. Where are they?"

"Just hold still so you don't get yourself hurt by doing something silly. Here they come."

A few moments later a group of what looked like wild mountain bandits armed with AK's and bandoliers stood up from behind the rocky ledges on both sides of the defile. We were covered and had nowhere to go.

"How did they get here? This is a big country. Do they just hang around in every canyon waiting for trespassers?" I asked, marveling.

"No," explained Noah. "The place is all honeycombed with tunnels. They tracked us to our landing spot and then sent a squad out here to pick us up."

A burly bearded fellow with a dark complexion and European features stepped forward to meet us. He wore a Russian uniform, a shapka, and black leather boots. A holstered piston hung at a jaunty western angle on his hips. At least it wasn't drawn.

"I thought Tash Kurghan was in Chinese territory," I whispered.

Phyllo's quiet thoughts flowed into my awareness. "We are actually northwest of Tash Kurghan. The boundaries in this whole area are under dispute between the Chinese, Tajiks, Afghans, Pakistanis, and Indians. Russians are in the area, too, carrying over from Soviet influence. The Kyrgyz and Uighur also consider this their turf. It is really nomad land and belongs to them all to roam freely with their camels, sheep, and yaks. Chinese and Russian imperial interests have temporarily encroached on some aspects, but Sabutai is the real landlord here."

"Pridite so mnoi, pozhaluysta," ("Come with me, please,") said the 'officer' curtly with a wave of his hand.

We followed him silently, and his rough-looking comrades scrambled down and fell in at our rear to keep an eye on us. After trekking for about fifteen minutes along a rocky path in an increasingly cold and dark canyon, we found ourselves standing before a rock wall. The Russian leader pressed a small device attached to his belt. A section of rock opened up pivoting on a set of giant steel hinges. The rock had been cut clean from the cliff face with a laser beam cutting tool. The motley squad escorted us through the doorway, and we found ourselves in the same kind of tunnel system with MagLev shuttles as at Sangre de Cristo. Rivah's Stargate experience came to mind.

They herded us onto a MagLev shuttle, and we headed off down the tunnel in an unknown direction. As we hummed along, I looked over some of my captors. They were not faceless and colorless storm troopers. The Afghans looked like Iranians. They were dark complexioned, two with bushy black mustaches and beards. They wore camouflaged battle fatigues. One had on a triple pocketed cartridge vest, and the other two had bandoliers decorated with clips and a couple of dangling grenades. The four Kyrgyz mountaineers were horsemen. They had on long leather moccasin-like riding boots, and wore over coats collared and edged with black fur and hand embroidered with exotic swirling floral and animal designs in bright red and green and gold against the thick black fabric and fur. One carried a tan saddle blanket with brown flour-de-lis emblems sewn onto it and red and green edging with little brightly colored beaded tassels on one end. One had a blue Mao hat, one a fur shapka, and two wore black felt skull caps with white embroidered patterns on them.

The Afghans spoke volubly in Pashto, which I couldn't understand. They showed an open and somewhat volatile temperament, like wild children, gesticulating as they spoke. The Turkic Kyrgyz were much more taciturn. When they did speak, I could catch words here and there because of the similarity to Uighur, which I had studied a bit of in my researches into Central Asia. I detected antipathy between the two groups, and both groups seemed to hold no great love for their Russian-speaking leader, though they followed his orders obediently.

The shuttle soon stopped in a typical berth, and we debarked into a large chamber. Our captor hosts led us to a table with a computer terminal, a scanning device, and a collection of straps that looked like dog training collars. They snapped one around the neck of each member of our party, and the officer informed us in Russian that these were monitors by which they could tell our location and basic bodily functions, such as heart and breath rate, body temperature, and so on. If we attempted to tamper with the collars, or to remove them, or even to speak loudly, they would automatically stun us with a nasty electric shock and trigger the alarm system in the central computer. Then they took us each off in different directions.

My Kyrgyz escort showed me to a small room with a cot, a chamber pot, and a small sink inset into the wall. He dropped my pack by the cot, sealed the door, and left me alone and incarcerated.

I sat down on the cot, and the situation began to sink in. There was no way that we could beat Sabutai by force, or even hope to escape undetected. My imagination took off.

No, this won't be like a 007 or a Star Wars movie. There won't be any scene where I overpower my guard, steal his weapon, and break into the computer system to find the whereabouts of my buddies. We don't have any special tools to pick our way through the security doors, and we won't take hostages to get past the retinal scans. Nor will we shoot our way past the hundreds of storm troopers that converge on us from all directions, throw all sorts of objects at them, crawl through ventilation systems, punch our way through garbage compactors, and finally reach Sabutai's Death Star core reactor. After all we don't have a high tech monkey wrench to throw into its inner workings. So we won't be able to cause his whole evil empire to explode in one massive Krakatoa. Nor will we snorkel our way to freedom by the skin of our teeth through a dripping sewer system filled with sharks and crocodiles.

No. This is a battle of wits, not a Rambo commando operation. Anyway, would I really want to destroy this place and all these people who had not yet done me any physical harm? And even if they did harm me, would that justify my striking back with violence, whether to save my own skin or to stop their reputed violence?

Or should I passively accept fate like so many Jews that Hitler set out to systematically liquidate? Would I have allowed the Viennese housepainter to incarcerate, torture, and murder millions of my brethren? Stalin and Mao managed to get away with the elimination of millions of people in the name of cooperative progress, and they lived to a ripe old age. Or is resistance useless in the face of superior force?

Here I am locked deep underground in the middle of Nomadland, tethered by an electronic chain. I am at Sabutai's mercy, and there's nothing I can do about it.

"Just remember our intention," the thought came to me unbidden. "Do not let the obstacles or difficulties sway you. Keep your attention on our group intention as if it were accomplished already."

I realized that the voice coming into my awareness was that of Kara. So we are not totally isolated after all! Maybe Phyllo was in touch as well, I thought.

"Yes, I am with you also." Phyllo's thoughts flowed through my awareness. "And you know your abilities. If you are firm and deliberate in your intention, there is nothing that they can do to you. They will not kill you. That would cause an international incident unfavorable to their ends. And the clandestine experts in the U.S. government know where we are and what we are doing. We can not just disappear without consequences for Sabutai. We are not important enough politically to assassinate. Assassination takes place in a highly visible, preferably public place. They can not terrorize us from the position we are in. So we are actually relatively safe. However, Sabutai may hold us hostage. If we are firm in refusing any demands, there is nothing he can do. With patience we may be able to convince him that to the extent he holds us prisoners, he ties himself down also. This is not to his own long-run best self interest."

Time passed. I lost track of the days because there were no days. I might have been there two or three days, or a week. My taciturn Kyrgyz caretaker, the one with the handsome horse blanket, obviously would rather be out on the steppe riding his horse. But occasionally he brought me some food, consisting of a Central Asian bread called nan and some chunks of kebap, roasted mutton, minus the shish-skewers (which could be used as weapons), plus tea indoctrinated with yak's milk. He also emptied my chamber pot and gave me a small bar of soap and two small facecloths to clean myself with, - one for my face, and one for my body functions.

I counted my meals and sleep periods, but they seemed more and more irregular. I exercised to keep fit. At intervals I heard from Phyllo and Kara, mostly encouragement to stay with my intent.

After a while that advice began to stir a doubt in me. Why were they urging me to stay with my intent? Did they have a hidden motive? Could I trust them as alien hybrids? After that thought I rarely heard from them.

Then suddenly Phyllo flowed quietly into my awareness to inform me that Sabutai was personally interrogating each of us one at a time. It would soon be my turn.

As a diversion I began to attempt communication with my silent escort whenever he briefly appeared. I told him a little about myself in my halting Uighur-Turkic, and invited him to share a little about his own background. He seemed to appreciate my attempts to speak his language and finally opened up enough to tell me his name was Ayub, and that he had been born in the northwest, beyond Kyrgyzstan in Kazakstan, above the Syr Darya, north of Qyzyl Orda. His family members were traditional nomadic herdsmen. When the Soviets began to collectivize and settle them, his people killed all their livestock herds rather than submit. Then, when he was a young child, the Soviets began their long series of nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk, so he and his brothers fled, escaping eastward into Shinjiang. Then the Chinese started testing in Lop Nor. The Kazaks and Uighurs complained bitterly at the heavy radiation fallout and pollution that the Soviets and Chinese brought into their lands. They realized that they were being used as laboratory animals in experiments to discover the long-term effects of radiation exposure on humans. Finally he and his brothers joined Sabutai in the mountains of the disputed territories and became a part of a new alternative.

Sabutai was cunning and ruthless. Yet he found ways to commandeer access to the best of high technology, while persuading the Soviets to give up their aspirations in Afghanistan and eventually allow Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian republics their independence. He showed the Soviets how they could retain access to what they wanted, and thereby he himself gained total access. From behind the scenes in his underground mountain bases he orchestrated the technical and political affairs of Central Asia, inexorably moving the minority peoples toward independence from the insensitive control of the Russians and the Chinese.

Ayub was totally loyal to Sabutai, a typical trait of the Turkic peoples. They are pragmatic administrators, loyal followers, and tough soldiers. Whatever Sabutai did, Ayub was ready to serve, and if need be, die in that service. I knew about the hostage syndrome, where the captive becomes dependent on and even enamored of his captor. Yet I couldn't help but feel a grudging respect for Sabutai and his rough and ready followers like Ayub.

I pointed out to him that Sabutai purveys antipersonnel mines. The mine fields left over from the Mujaheddin resistance to Soviet occupation in Afghanistan were still mangling people every day and holding back the return to agriculture that could help restore the country.

He shrugged and told me that the Soviet nuclear fallout over his homeland and the agricultural pollution could last a lot longer. Sabutai could not stop the mines, but secretly supported the Afghan resistance through twelve years of war. Sowing the mines gave him the trust of the Russians. But look at the results, said Ayub. Russia is out of Afghanistan, the Soviet Empire is gone, and Sabutai holds sway over most of Central Asia.

If need be the mujaheddin would martyr themselves on the mines Sabutai had helped the Soviets sow over their fields and passes. "That is nothing," said Ayub. In the Afghanistan holocaust more than a million were killed, two million were driven from their homes, and five million became refugees in Iran and Pakistan. Tens of thousands were imprisoned and tortured by the KhAD secred police. And the West did nothing. When the people of Herat resisted the Soviets and their communist henchmen in Kabul, the Russians bombed the town to rubble, killing over 24,000 people in a single day. It was a modern day high technology reenactment of what Genghiz Khan did to the same city back in the 13th century when he butchered all but a dozen or so.

Just as we began to get to know each other, he directed me to go with him down the hall to another room. On the floor were spread colorful rugs. Along the rear wall was a dais, like a low kang, also covered with the patterned rugs. On the wall over the kang hung a large scroll with a reproduction of the official dynastic portrait of Genghiz Khan. Sitting on the kang nursing a lidded cup of tea was a broad-faced man with Mongolian features. His black hair was graying around the temples, but his build was stocky and powerful. He had a small drooping mustache, and crows feet at the corners of his eyes. He wore a fluffy sheepskin vest over a dark red shirt, and his pants were blue jeans.

He motioned gruffly for me to sit down opposite him on the kang, and Ayub brought me a cup of tea with yak's milk and a little Russian sugar.

We stared at each other in silence for a couple of minutes. Finally he spoke in Mandarin Chinese with a Mongolian cum Beijing accent. "Mr. Hua-ko. Why have you come here uninvited?"

I decided to be blunt. "Mr. Galdan, I have personally witnessed one of your assassins murder a group of innocent people and then commit suicide. Someone also killed my wife with a bomb. I have learned that you are responsible for these deeds and much of the terrorist activity that goes on in the world. I am here to ask you to stop the use of terrorist tactics and violent force by your organization."

He nodded. "Good. Mr. Hua-ko. Are you acting alone, or have agents of your own government indoctrinated you? If I stop what I am doing, then I am retired. But someone else will step in and take over where I leave off. And you might find that person even more difficult to deal with. The Mongol-Turkic people come from the Altai Mountains. We were called the Golden Horde, not because there is gold in the mountains, though there is, - and not because of our skin, though it is golden. Life is tough in the pamirs and high plateaus of Central Asia, and we are basically nomads and caravan traders. Under our great Khan we learned how to let go of everything to get what we really want, and at the same time to fight hard. To those who resist, we seem harsh. But we welcome in peace and tolerance those who do not resist.

"Force is a problem for you only because you resist it. Let me give you an example. In your country drug abuse is a problem because you resist it. You criminalize people who use drugs and set people to fighting and killing each other over the drugs. This is much worse than the effects of the drugs themselves. You think the drugs are bad because you resist their effects. Lately in your country cocaine smuggling has been taken over by a new drug, - freon. People don't eat it or drink it like alcohol. They put it in refrigerators. But your government has decided to make it illegal to have it, and now the prices have soared and availability is scarce. A hundred years ago no one even knew what freon was, so no one cared about it. You created a demand for it and a dependency on it, and then you made it illegal to buy. Now you complain about the violent smugglers who bring it in from Mexico and other places. I ask you. Where is the source of the problem?

"Who is really practicing terrorism? In your country during the last decade only a handful of terrorist acts have happened. But your government has already gutted the Bill of Rights in your Constitution in order to 'protect' your people from imaginary terrorists from abroad. And you don't realize what is going on or what real terrorism is all about. People of slave mentality, unwilling to take responsibility, always draw overlords to oppress them and govern them. That is the game. No laws or form of government can protect you from your self."

"You have a very uncompassionate view of things," I commented.

"Who really lacks compassion?" replied Sabutai. "Is it the one who criminalizes creative entrepreneurs and fills jails, or is it the man who is willing to fight and die for what he loves and believes in? Some men are willing to step on a mine or embrace a grenade so that his brothers may eat in freedom. The so-called innocent people in their media-hypnotized cowardice silently support their cruel masters in the subjugation of free souls."

"I see your point," I conceded. "But why have you held us in prison like this?"

"Did you know that the so-called free democracy of the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world? Your congressmen are studying the Chinese system of slave labor camps to see how they can get the lowest cost coolie labor out of prisoners and compete with the other slave labor countries like Pakistan and China in making money. We did not jail you. We live Spartan lives like this most of the time. Our nomads often endure extreme environmental conditions as a matter of daily life. Ayub who brought you your food would rather ride his horse across the steppes and tend his yaks and sheep, even in subzero temperatures. He tended you because he is my loyal follower and knows that I can handle the Russians and your power mongers as well.

"I have heard that in your Bible God gives Satan free rein to test a loyal man to the limits of human endurance. Is that compassionate? Or is it a trial of resolve with a higher purpose? Since you and your comrades are here, let me tempt you with an introduction to our life style."

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