Dan Simmons - Phases of Gravity

'So this one day I'd finished my morning chores and was lying on the raft on my stomach, almost asleep, when I hear Blackie swimming out to the raft, then suddenly the noise is gone and I look up and there's no sign of him, just ripples. I knew right away what must've happened, the reeds, and I dove off after him without even thinking. I heard Pop shout at me from near the barn when I came up, but I dove down again, three, maybe four times, pushing through the weeds, getting stuck down there, kicking loose and trying again. You couldn't see anything, and the mud alone would grab you up to ankle and try to keep you down there. The last time I came up I had the stinking water up my nose and I was covered with mud and I could see Pop yelling at me from the shore over there, but I went down again and just when I was out of air and the weeds were all wrapped around me and I was sure there wasn't any use of trying more, I felt Blackie, right on the bottom, not even struggling any more, and I didn't even go back up for air, I just kept pulling at weeds and kicking at the mud, still holding on to him because I knew I wouldn't find him again if I let go for a second. I ran out of air. I remember swallowing some of that stinking water, but goddamn it, I wasn't going back up without my dog. And then somehow I got both of us free and was pulling him into the shallow end there and Pop was dragging us both on shore and fussing over me and yelling at me at the same time, and I was coughing water and crying and trying to get Blackie to breathe. I was sure he was drowned, he was so limp and heavy he felt full of water. He felt dead. But I kept pushing at his ribs while I was throwing up water myself and I'll be damned if that dog didn't all of a sudden cough up about a gallon or so of pond water and start whimpering and breathing again.' Dave took the stalk of his grass out of his mouth and tossed it away. 'I guess that's about as happy as I've ever been,' said Dave. 'Pop said he was mad at me for jumping in — he threatened to wallop me if I ever went swimming there again — but I knew that he was proud. Once when we went into Condon I was sitting in the truck and I heard him telling a couple of his friends about it, and I knew he was proud of me. But I don't think that was why I felt so happy about it. You know, Richard, I used to think about it when I was flying medevac in ‘Nam and knew it was something more than just pleasing Pop. I hated being there in Vietnam. I was scared shitless almost all of the time and I knew it was going to kick the hell out of my career when they found out what I was doing. I hated the weather, the war, the bugs, everything . And I was happy. I thought about it then and I realized that it just made me damn happy to be saving things, saving people. It's like everything in the universe was conspiring to drag those poor sons of bitches down, drag them under, and I'd come along in that fucking chopper and grab on and we'd just refuse to let them go under.' They walked back past the house, set up the grill next to the jeep, and cooked their dinner. The evening chill struck the instant the direct sunlight was gone. Baedecker could see two volcanic peaks catching the last light far to the north and east. They waited until the charcoal glowed white, singed the outside of their hamburger patties, added thick slices of onion, and ate ravenously, each opening a fresh beer with dinner.

'Did you ever consider buying the ranch and rebuilding it?' asked Baedecker. Dave shook his head. 'Too many ghosts.'

'Still, you came back to live nearby.'

'Yeah.'

'I have a friend,' said Baedecker, 'who said that there might be places of power. She thinks we could do worse than to spend our lives searching for them. What do you think?'

'Places of power,' said Dave. 'Like Miz Callahan's magnetic lines of force, huh?' Baedecker nodded. The idea did sound absurd.

'I think your friend is right,' said Dave. He pulled another beer from the cooler and shook the ice off it. 'But I bet it's more complicated than that. There're places of power — yeah — no doubt about that. But it's like we were talking about last night. You have to help make them. You have to be in the right place at the right time and know it.'

'How do you know it?' asked Baedecker.

'By dreaming about it but not thinking about it,' Dave said.

Baedecker pulled the tab on another beer and put his feet up on the dash. The house was only a silhouette against a fading sky now. He zipped up his coat. 'By dreaming about it but not thinking about it,' he said.

'Right. Have you ever practiced any Zen meditation?'

'No,' said Baedecker.

'I did for a few years,' said Dave. 'The idea is to get rid of all the thinking so there's nothing between you and the thing . By not looking you're supposed to see clearly.'

'Did it work?'

'Nope,' said Dave, 'not for me. I'd sit there chanting my mantra or whatever and think about every damned thing in the universe. Half the time I'd have a hard-on from erotic daydreams. But I did find something that worked.'

'What's that?'

'Our training for the mission,' said Dave. 'The endless simulations worked pretty much the way meditation was supposed to and didn't.' Baedecker shook his head. 'I don't agree. That was just the opposite. The whole goddamn thing, when it finally happened, was just like the simulations . I didn't experience any of it because of all the preprogramming the simulations had stuck in me.'

'Yeah,' Dave said and took the last bite of his hamburger, 'that's the way I used to feel. Then I realized that that wasn't the case at all. What we did was turn those two days on the moon into a sacrament.'

'A sacrament?' Baedecker tugged his cap down low and frowned. 'A sacrament?'

'Joan was Catholic, wasn't she?' asked Dave. 'I remember you used to go to Mass with her occasionally in Houston.'

'Yes.'

'Well, you know what I mean then, although it's not as well done these days as when I was a kid and used to go with Ma. The Latin helped.'

'Helped what?'

'Helped the ritual,' said Dave. 'Just like the mission, the simulations helped. The more ritualized it is, the less thought gets in the way. You remember the first thing Buzz Aldrin did when they had a few minutes of personal time after Apollo 11 landed?'

'Celebrated communion,' said Baedecker. 'He brought the wine and stuff in his personal preference kit. He was . . . what . . .? Presbyterian?'

'It doesn't matter,' said Dave. 'But what Buzz didn't realize is that the mission itself was already the ritual, the sacrament was already in place, just waiting for someone to celebrate it.'

'How so?' said Baedecker but already the truth of what Dave was saying had struck him on some internal level.

'I saw the photograph you left there,' Dave said. 'The picture of you and Joan and Scott. By the seismic experiment package.' Baedecker said nothing. He remembered kneeling there in the lunar dusk before the snapshot, the layers of pressurized moonsuit stiff and clumsy around him, the stark sunlight a benediction.

'I left an old belt buckle of my father's,' said Dave. 'I set it right next to the laser reflecting mirrors.'

'You did?' said Baedecker, truly surprised. 'When?'

'When you were getting the Rover ready for the trip to Rill 2 on the first EVA,' said Dave. 'Hell, I'd be amazed if every one of the twelve of us who walked up there didn't do something like that.'

'I never thought of that,' said Baedecker.

'The rest of it was all preparation, just clearing away inconsequentials. Even places of power are useless unless you're prepared to bring something to them. And I don't mean just the things we brought — they're to the real sacrament what the lump of bread is to the Eucharist. Then, if you come away the same person you were, you know it wasn't really a place of power.'