Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) Read online

  Orient shook his head. The cigarette case was something he carried with him everywhere. Sordi must have had a terrible time getting hold of it for long enough to copy the design. Especially with the Secret Service men all over the house.

  He opened the case. Neatly tucked inside a silver pocket was a pack of Bambu cigarette paper. His favorite brand. Orient smiled. Sordi.

  He examined the design again. He remembered the untroubled sense of achievement, the confident acceptance when Ku had given him the inscribed cigarette case. No question then of his purpose or his worthiness. He snapped the thin cover of the holder shut.

  Putting the silver case back into his shirt pocket, he stood up. He wouldn’t wait until morning, he decided, he’d take a shower and leave the house tonight. As he walked up the stairs to the bedroom, he tried to free his mind of all his regrets. He wasn’t getting anything he didn’t want.

  He finished his long hot shower with a hard spray of cold water from all nine nozzles, enjoying the fresh tingle of stimulated blood racing under his skin.

  Afterward, as he brushed his long wet hair back away from his face, he had an urge to visit the meditation room once more before the new owner converted it into a bedroom. Still naked, he padded up the dark stairs to the third floor and went to the door at the end of the hall. He slid the door aside and switched on the lights.

  Different areas of the room lit up; sections of the high ceiling, portions of the textured walls, parts of the translucent flooring around the now empty pool. Some areas glowed a soft white, others a deep amber. In one corner an indirect blue spot and a yellow patch of light combined to create a hazy green focus. All of the lighting had been carefully arranged by Orient to entice a tension between light and shadow. The only object in the room was a massive rock standing on the floor at an angle to the pool. At one time the pool had been the home of a swarm of brightly hued fish which swam through constantly running water.

  Orient had a faint feeling of pride as he looked around the room he had designed. His purpose had been to provide an environment which would serve to lull its occupants into a receptive state of awareness. The rock, the pool, the light, the shadow, had all been juxtaposed carefully to create an atmosphere of dynamic serenity. And even without the fish it still worked.

  He sat down on the carpet, between the stone and the pool, and began the physical movements that were the first stage of his meditation.

  At first the stretching and loosening of his stiff muscles was awkward. He stopped, rested; then began again.

  He concentrated on limbering his spine, focusing his energy on the delicate network of nerve endings woven through the socketed flex of bone and fleshy fiber. As his body started to respond, he began the breathing. The very first patterns. The nose inhale. Opening the solar plexus and igniting the first connections. Focusing tighter with each cycle of breath, fusing his mind to the rhythms.

  He swam back through his being, toward the light, the chemical spark of his presence. The luminous combinations of his reality were an infinite swirl of shifting shapes around him. They began to separate, revealing geometric clusters of memory. The flash of birth. A childhood toy. His parents. The Dream.

  His energy fluttered, twisting to avoid the pain. He deepened his breathing patterns, trying to recapture the glittering calm.

  The Dream. His parents. The plane crash making the dream real.

  Suddenly the swirls were blurred with thoughts.

  Ferrari. He remembered the man as a thrust of appetites; ever-expanding lusts for learning, pleasure, fame, and emotion. Enormous capacities for love, hate, and competition. A driving, brilliant child who demanded to taste everything available. Orient had worked with, learned from, and fought with Ferrari, but he had never been able to match that consuming hunger.

  The thoughts shattered his concentration. He began again, trying to fuse his breath to his will.

  He floated back and the swirls loomed, unfolded, and became the incandescent imprint of the mountain. He went back to the first hour of the first day. The first momentary glimpse of the cave. The tiny tent where he had lived during his apprenticeship to Ku of the Fourth Level. Entering into the second, by second, existence of that splendid isolation—the Serene Knowledge... The focus slipped again and whirled him back to the turmoil-the confusion—Ferrari...

  Once again he went back to the primary pattern—controlling his breath—his energy yearning for the pure soaring awareness of the mountain...

  He continued the pattern over and over, like some solitary swimmer diving for a lost tool, until he fell into a dreamless sleep there on the soft carpet.

  CHAPTER 2

  The sound of heavy thumping and men shouting downstairs woke Orient. He looked around.

  Excellent.

  He had fallen asleep in the meditation room. His great decision to leave the house had faded. He rubbed his eyes. When a man has nowhere to go, he told himself, it makes no difference what time he begins. He stood up and stretched carefully. Another shout jogged him fully awake. The movers were delivering the new owner’s household.

  Suddenly aware that he was naked, he left the room and went quietly down to the bedroom. He washed, brushed his teeth and hair, and began to get dressed. He was buttoning his shirt when a squat, muscular man with a dirty white handkerchief tied around his head opened the door. He took a well-chewed cigar butt out of his mouth and pointed it at Orient.

  "Who the hell arc you?" he grunted.

  "I’m the old owner. I’ve been packing some last things."

  "Old owner been out of here two days already." The man moved closer. "He’s a doctor. You don’t look old enough to be no doctor."

  Orient reached into the pocket of his suitcase and handed the man his identification.

  The man put the cigar butt into the corner of his mouth and wiped his hand on his shirt as he studied the passport and driver’s license.

  Satisfied finally, he passed them back.

  The man lingered while Orient packed some towels into the bag Sordi had prepared for him. He looked around for his pigskin windbreaker. He tried to take his time but the man’s presence made him uncomfortable. He suddenly wanted to get as far away as possible from the house. He picked up the suitcase and started out.

  The man went ahead and opened the door. As Orient passed him, the man broke the long silence. "You look like a kid, you know that?" he confided.

  "It’s the vitamins," Orient said, moving quickly to the stairs.

  The sun was shining and even though the air coming across the river was cold, Orient could feel spring only a few weeks away. He stood on the sidewalk and took a long breath. He looked at the river for a moment, then began walking downtown.

  He maintained a steady pace for twenty or thirty blocks until he became extremely thirsty. He tried three luncheonettes before finding a sidewalk stand that sold fresh-squeezed orange juice. Over his second glass he began to approach full consciousness. He was standing just off 86th Street on Third Avenue. He wondered where it was that he’d turned east. He ordered another glass and tried to get his thoughts functioning. He’d have to find a place to stay. Then he would decide what to do after that. He looked at his watch. It wasn’t there.

  Then he remembered. He had left it in the bathroom along with his toothbrush, razor, herb shampoo, pine-tar soap and the other essentials in his toilet case. They were lost. He wouldn’t be going back for them.

  He’d been born in that house and this morning he had been an intruder. He set his jaw as he realized how final—and how impersonal-were the transactions of change. There had been no real possession. Merely the illusion supported by time. He was learning already.

  Orient was mildly dismayed by the bill for three glasses of orange juice. Four dollars. His hundred-dollar stake money wouldn’t take him very far. He was so out of touch that he had no idea how much it cost an ordinary man to live for a few weeks. He decided to go to the park.

  As he walked slowly west toward Fifth Aven
ue, he pondered how ill-prepared he was for life outside his hothouse. Ever since he had entered Stanford at fifteen he had been isolated from contact with people on a normal human level. There had been girls, even at sixteen, but he was committed to work and there had been little time for developing relationships. There were studies in mathematics, science, and languages. Then medical school, his psychiatric specialization, and the great transition after he comprehended Jung and Reich. During that period he had begun his experimentation with ultranormal phenomena.

  After that he had pursued an intensive study of the occult, that period closely followed by his immersion into yoga. Then came the journey to Tibet and the development of the telepathic technique.

  And with all that training he had absolutely no idea of how he was to live like an ordinary man. How to find the channel between his awakened consciousness, and mankind’s simple karma. He snorted. Perhaps he should try a mind-reading act.

  At Fifth he crossed and turned uptown, walking for a few blocks until he found a small entrance to Central Park. He walked the curving pathways for awhile, then sat down, still only half-aware of his surroundings. He looked around.

  He was sitting by himself. A short distance away, a man with red shoulder-length hair was sitting on a bench across from him. The man had a magazine in his lap and was rolling a cigarette. He was wearing a black cowboy shirt emblazoned with silver eagles on each shoulder. Rodeo must be in town, Orient mused. He went back to his thoughts.

  Through all the experiments with his communicants, he had been unable to bridge one vital gap. Common understanding. Probably that was why the tape was a failure. A twinge of defeat scratched at the memory of the uncompleted reel of videotape he had turned over to Andy.

  His definitive statement.

  His intention had been to make a visual presentation of everything he had discovered concerning human telepathic potential. He had also had a further ambition; he set out to blend science and art so skillfully, that not only would the viewer understand telepathic technique, but his own dormant powers would be stimulated to awareness in the process. Ultimate communication of communication.

  He hadn’t been up to it. He had completely scrapped most of it. Pretentious footage of colts being born, birds in flight; a worthless cliché.

  Still, the tape project was the one thread of his life he intended to pick up and use again. He smelled burning leaves.

  He automatically turned toward the source of the scent. The cowboy was sitting head back, looking at the tops of the trees, smoking a cigarette. He became aware of Orient watching him and slowly got to his feet. He bent down and carefully adjusted his jeans over his high brown boots. Then he straightened up and gave Orient a long deliberate stare.

  Orient felt a vibration of recognition. There was something familiar about the red-haired man. The cowboy turned and began strolling up the path, the smell of burning leaves fading after him. A wave of comprehension washed over Orient’s mind. The cowboy was a potential. Orient watched him disappear around a curve. And the cowboy hadn’t been smoking tobacco.

  A few months ago he would have done everything possible to recruit the cowboy’s telepathic talent. Help him understand and develop it. Today the man was just another stranger. He had his own potential to develop.

  He’d have to find some kind of work he could do. Medical research was out. It would be another form of removal. He needed something that would put him in touch with people. He stood up, picked up his bag, and started walking through the park.

  His mind jumped back to the cowboy. Potentials weren’t commonplace after all. In the past four years he’d found only eight. And five of them weren’t able to complete their training. Maybe he should have tried to talk to the man.

  He veered off the path and walked across the grass to a group of rocks. He climbed up onto the lowest ledge and leaned back against the stone, gazing at the distant 59th Street skyline.

  He needed some place to stay. Perhaps a hotel with weekly rates.

  But even that was only a temporary measure. In a few days he’d be out of money and in the same situation. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. He picked up his bag and began walking slowly south toward the skyline. By the time he reached the zoo he was hungry.

  In the past he often enjoyed long walks along the Hudson and through the park, but he had always avoided this section, with its cramped cages and musky stench of animal flesh moldering in captivity. Today, however, he saw the gaudily decorated outdoor patio of the cafeteria and decided to stop for something to eat.

  He went inside, took a tray, and looked for some food that approximated his own special diet. The closest he could come was a jar of yogurt, honey, a carrot and raisin salad and chocolate malted with a raw egg. He was pleased to discover that the whole meal came to less than he had paid for three glasses of orange juice that morning. He made a mental note to eat here more often.

  Carrying his full tray and suitcase proved to be an intricate maneuver so he sat down at the first available table. He set the bag down next to his chair and looked around. The long-haired cowboy was sitting at the next table, grinning broadly at something his companion, a pretty blond girl, was saying.

  When he saw Orient, the only change in his expression was a slight narrowing of his clear blue eyes. A moment later, however, he leaned over and whispered something to the girl and they both got up from the table. As they passed him, the cowboy glanced at Orient while continuing his conversation with the girl.

  Orient calmly ate his salad. Potentials usually experienced an unexplained sense of agitation or anxiety in his presence. During his experiments he had discovered that this was due to an increase in the amount of electromagnetic energy produced by the brain, disturbing the field. Like static on a radio or the extreme fluctuations produced when charging a dormant battery.

  He speculated again on the possibility of contacting the cowboy, then shrugged off the thought. He had to do something positive about his own battery before he could develop someone else.

  When he was finished, he sat watching the crowd, regarding it with a mixture of admiration and curiosity. The profusion of balloons -and colors complemented the vitality that emanated from the people strolling through the area. It occurred to him that all of them appeared to be holding a definite claim on their life, and that they fully intended to keep possession. He wondered where it was they found their title.

  He picked up his bag and moved off the terrace toward the interior of the park, deliberately avoiding the cages.

  He wandered for a time, trying to free his mind of all thought, allowing his instincts to guide his direction. When he got to Central Park West, he veered downtown, continuing on to Columbus Circle. He saw a subway entrance, went down the steps, bought a token, and took the first train that came, still letting fate call the turns.

  The subway was crowded and Orient, unused to the ground rules of public transportation, was pushed aside and stifled in the jam before he decided to get some fresh air a few stops later.

  He looked around. He was at the Fourth Street Station at Washington Square. Interesting. He had always had an affinity for Greenwich Village but his visits there had been limited to brief excursions with friends.

  He walked up the stairs to Sixth Avenue, he ambled slowly to Eight Street and turned east. The street ended at the entrance to a small, barren-looking park, and a sign informed him that he was in Tompkin’s Square. He crossed the street and entered the park.

  A large group of old people lined the benches at the entrance. As Orient passed, he noticed they had strong-boned Slavic faces; his ears could pick out here and there a few words of Ukrainian.

  A short distance ahead he saw the fenced recreation areas teeming with Puerto Rican and Negro youths doing gymnastics on high bars, playing softball and handball, or just standing in groups of four or five, smoking and talking.

  Across from the playground a fantastic swarm of young people were sitting on the grass talking, sleeping, eating, play
ing musical instruments, or watching passersby. They all had the same ragged élan Orient had noticed in the neighborhood of the zoo. Both boys and girls were dressed in exotic mirrored vests, velvet tunics, chain belts, Arab robes, renaissance gowns, fringed buckskin jackets, swirl-dyed sweatshirts, Indian headbands, flag-striped shirts, Foreign Legion uniforms, and embroidered musketeer capes. For a moment Orient was reminded of the marketplaces of the Middle East and India. The whole scene had a wild tribal quality.

  Orient sat down at the edge of the grass.

  As he leaned back and relaxed, a small group of bearded young men dressed identically in flowing oriental shirts and blue jeans arranged themselves nearby. They were carrying guitars and crude drums made by stretching goatskin over large cans. They settled into a circle on the grass and began to play; first softly, then gathering increasing intensity.

  A thin boy of four or five dressed in a green suede Robin Hood outfit, complete with feathered hat and buckskin leggings, ambled over to where he was sitting, plunked down beside him and calmly rested his chin on Orient’s knee.

  Orient was momentarily uncomfortable. He looked around to see where the child had come from. "Don’t be uptight, it’s all right," a pleasant feminine voice called out. Orient looked up and saw a young girl at the edge of the circle of musicians beaming at him. She stood up and walked toward him.

  She was barefoot and dressed in a mini-skirted version of the child’s Robin Hood costume. Her wavy chestnut hair hung almost to her waist and Orient saw that a large silver Ankh, the loop-topped Egyptian cross of life, was dangling from her wide belt. She sat down next to him and looked directly into his face with her wide brown eyes. "You must have a nice soul," she said seriously. "Julian won’t sit down with just anyone."

  Orient smiled. Something about her manner dispelled any discomfort he felt. "I’m not very used to children."

  "Children are more aware than adults," the girl said. "They feel pure vibrations, you know."