Hari Kunzru - Gods Without Men

Maa Joanie got up and switched off the Christmas lights, leaving only a candle burning on the nightstand. Everyone settled themselves down. Not really knowing what to do, Dawn just followed the others, sitting with her hands in her lap, dropping her head like she was praying in church. It was clear that Judy was now in charge. She did some kind of strange breathing thing and began to speak.

“Calling Command! Calling Command! Beloved Commanders, are you monitoring my wave? Come in, if you are receiving this signal. We of Earth desire contact with the Light.”

There was a silence, then a deep male voice spoke. Dawn didn’t dare open her eyes, but it sounded as if it was coming from where Judy was sitting.

“Salutations! I am Argus, director of Earth Missions, 325th wave. I am standing by. Discontinue.”

Maa Joanie spoke.

“Beloved Commander Argus! Greetings and salutations to you and your Supreme Commander Ashtar. In the name of Lord Jesus-Sananda, we need advice. Earth base is threatened by law enforcement operatives in league with the Dark Forces. We need to know if we should protect a young Lightworker, or if we should ask her to sacrifice her connection for the greater good of the mission.”

“I hear you, Beloved. Your emotions are imprinted on my soul. You are in doubt. I am sorry that it should be so. This is a complex problem. I will consult my colleagues in council. Please stand by.”

The silence seemed to last forever. If it really was just Judy using a weird voice, Dawn was sure the “aliens” would tell them to send her back to Uncle Ray. Her thoughts drifted on to whether she should beg Old Man Craw to reconsider or just get on a Greyhound and leave town. Where to? L.A.? San Francisco? Then Judy did her strange breathing thing again.

“Beloved, we have met in telepathic council and all are in accord. The girl is a special one. She has the solar seal on her brow. You are to protect her from the Dark Forces. Use any means necessary. My blessings and the Blessings of all the Solar Hierarchy fall upon you. Dwell in the Light. I am Argus. Discontinue.”

Dawn looked up at Judy in wonderment. Judy smiled. And winked at her, she was sure. Maybe it was just a trick of the light.

And that was how Dawn found herself in a law office in Victorville with Maa Joanie and Clark Davis, who was wearing ostrich boots and a bolo tie and a new felt hat for the occasion. She said the things he’d schooled her to say, about how her uncle came in when she was in the shower and touched her inappropriately and made remarks, and how she feared if she stayed under his roof he would fall into sinful ways. Sheriff Waghorn sat and stared goggle-eyed and Ray cursed and waved his hands and the lawyer told him he didn’t look kindly on such displays in the presence of a young lady. Then the sheriff told Ray flat out to drop it, said it wasn’t worth his while to keep hold of her if she didn’t want to stay. Ray looked like he wanted to strangle her with his bare hands but settled for calling her a tramp. All the while Aunt Luanne cried bitterly. Dawn felt sorry for Luanne, who’d never done anything to deserve a pig like Ray.

Looking back, that was the real start of the war between the town and the Ashtar Galactic Command. Each side thought the other was in league with the Dark Forces, and each side was prepared to do whatever it took to ensure right should prevail. A couple of days later Sal and Marcia came back from town all covered in red house paint, saying some boys in a green-and-white Mercury drove past on Main Street and threw it over them. Dawn knew exactly who it was. Frankie and Robbie and Donny Hansen and Kyle Mulligan and some of the other jocks had taken to driving out to the Pinnacles to hang around. They’d play music and lean on their cars, drinking beer and throwing the cans over the compound fence. If Wolf or Gila or any of the other guys came out they’d take off, but sometimes they shouted things about Dawn being a hippie slut and how they hoped she liked being fucked by niggers. Hurtful things, especially from Frankie, who always used to be so sweet.

Of course everything the good old boys at Mulligan’s thought was going on up at the rocks really was, and more besides. It took a while for Dawn to cotton on to why people who were sometimes so talkative could spend whole days lying silently in the dome or trudging naked circles on the dry lake. At least some of the money for food and building materials was coming from the drug runs being made to L.A. and San Francisco, which seemed to be almost a full-time occupation for many of the Children of Light. Whatever was getting bought and sold wasn’t really any of her concern. As for being “intact,” whatever that meant, the night of the Pioneer Parade Wolf had taken her out on the rocks and calmly stripped her of her shorts and halter top and licked her pussy with his long tongue and then fucked her slowly and methodically until she whimpered and scratched his back. Afterward she felt more intact than she’d ever felt in her life.

It wasn’t all good, though, not by any means. She thought she and Wolf were together and he more or less acted that way until the night he took his bedroll and went to sleep next to some new girl from Wisconsin, calmly, like it was nothing. Dawn had been studying hard. She understood possessiveness was a kind of negative energy and true souls of Light shone their love indiscriminately on the world, but she still felt hurt and more or less followed Wolf around until he told her to stop. She said she loved him and he said he loved her too but his love was too big to be confined to any one person or thing. For a while she holed up on her own and even thought about leaving and going back to town, but Pilgrim Billy talked her out of that, and soon enough she was snuggling down next to him under a scratchy Indian blanket, while his big gentle carpenter’s hands explored her body, making her feel the world wasn’t so bad.

At that time they were all sleeping in the big dome, except for Judy and Joanie and Clark Davis, who had their own cabins. The metal skin made it stifling hot during the day, and even at night it was a sweaty, busy place, the air roiled by body smells and mesquite smoke from the cook fire and farting and coughing and the sudden flickerings of pipes and matches and the rake of flashlight beams as people hunted about for space to crash. They were naked most of the time, and though she was shy at first, she gradually got used to it, to the sight of bodies, to the hearing and the seeing of sex, which was natural and beautiful, not “intercourse,” full of fear and guilt. She thought about Uncle Ray, and Frankie and the red-faced sheriff, about how scared they all were, and to her surprise, she actually began to feel a little sorry for them.

Further on down the line she found out nothing came for free. She was a starchild, a love giver, but it was easier to shine your light on some people than others. After Billy there was Guru Bob and then Floyd, who she didn’t really want to go with, because he had a skin condition, but it was hard to deny someone without generating negativity and giving aid to the Dark Forces. Then one night Mountain told her Clark wanted to see her. She knew what was coming. He’d let her know in small ways that she owed him, and though he was supposed to be with Maa, he liked to get laid and was persistent and paranoid about rejection and sooner or later everyone had to give it up, just to get some peace. You were only unlucky if he took a shine to you, was what she’d heard. Dawn made sure he got bored quick enough. She lay there like a dead fish while he did his business, thinking about how righteous and moral he’d been with Ray at the law office, and how he and her uncle were probably more or less the same age.

None of the bad stuff mattered. Not when you were in contact with beings from other stars, part of the earthly salvation mission of the Ashtar Galactic Command. Wolf and the others had a saying: Music is the message . That was to say, it was communication, a way of making contact with the Command. Almost everyone on the compound played an instrument, and those that didn’t, like Dawn, knew how to chant or bang something or clap in time.