Robert Silverberg - The Time Hoppers

Mainly, though, the cults were more innocent things—revolting, perhaps, but not criminal. Such as this one, in which the chewing of the cud somehow led to a feeling of interpersonal harmony. Cashdan was intoning a digestive litany of some sort. Galuber was still stuffing resilient dough into his mouth. How much could that capacious belly hold? Jennifer Galuber was watching her husband with pride. The frood continued to devour. His face was transfigured, the eyes virtually sightless. Jennifer glowed. Her bare body seemed even more huge as she took vicarious pleasure from her husband’s importance.

They were all chanting, now. Even Judith. Low, serious sounds of spirituality came from them.

She nudged him. “You too,” she whispered.

“I don’t know the words.”

“Just drone along then.”

He shrugged. Galuber had ingested nearly every scrap of dough in the bowl. Surely his stomach was painfully distended, now. That stuff was like rubber. The emetic it contained worked on a critical-mass basis; once you had enough of the stuff in your gut, the peristalsis reflex was triggered and the sacred regurgitation began.

Judith, beside Quellen, was begging to be admitted into the realms of Oneness. Nirvana through upchucking, Quellen thought coldly. How could it be? What am I doing here? The chant rebounded from the glass walls and deafened him. In a subtle antiphony currents of sound were sweeping round and round the room. He could not avoid swaying in rhythm. His lips moved. He would have joined in, if only he knew the words. He found himself humming tunelessly. Cashdan, still leading the ceremony, stepped up his volume. His voice was a fine, thick, black basso, with plenty of intensity to it.

Galuber sat motionless in the centre of the pit. His eyes were closed. His hands were clasped on his abdomen. His face was flushed. He alone was in stasis in the midst of this swaying, chanting congregation. Quellen forced himself to stay aloof, observing. He watched the rhythmic side-to-side motions of Jennifer Galuber’s offensively large breasts. He watched Judith’s fine-boned face turn radiant with some inner ecstasy. A sexless young man with slicked-down maroon hair was jerking as though he had hold of a high-voltage wire. Around the room, the mysterious passion of social regurgitation was taking hold.

Dr Galuber began to vomit, now.

The frood regurgitated with quiet dignity. His thick lips parted, and lumps of dough burst forth into the bowl. Sweat beaded his flushed face; there was effort in any kind of reverse peristalsis, even when the medulla was lulled, as it was by the drug within the dough. Yet he performed his function in the rite nobly. The bowl was filled.

It was passed around.

Hands clutched at moist dough. Take and eat, take and eat; here is the body, the authentic substance of the group. Join in the Oneness. Brose Cashdan was eating. Jennifer Galuber ate. Judith tranquilly accepted her portion. Quellen found a wet doughy mass in his hand.

Take. Eat.

Be objective. This is Oneness. His hand rose trembling towards his lips. He felt Judith’s thigh warm against his own, beside him. Take and eat. Take and eat. Galuber lay prostrate in the pit, transfixed with ecstasy.

Quellen ate.

He chewed lustily, not allowing himself to hesitate. The particular property of the indigestible substance was that it could be digested upon contact with saliva following immersion in the alimentary tract. One swallowing wasn’t enough; Galuber had merely prepared it for their intake. Quellen swallowed. Oddly, he felt no queasiness. He had eaten ants, raw whelks, sea urchins, other exotic delicacies, and had not even been granted a chance of a spiritual experience in the bargain. Why hesitate at this?

The other communicants were weeping in joy. Tears glistened on Judith’s sprayon garment. Quellen still felt deplorably objective about the universe. He had not joined the mystic communion after all, dutifully though he had observed the rite. He waited patiently for the ecstasy to pass from the others.

Judith whispered to him, “Will you celebrate the next round?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Joe—”

“Please. I came, didn’t I? I’m participating. Don’t ask me to be the star.”

“It’s customary for strangers to the group to—”

“I know. Not me. Someone else can have the honour.”

She looked reproachfully at him. Quellen realized that he had failed her. Tonight had been some sort of a test, and he had nearly passed. Nearly.

Brose Cashdan had produced a second mass of ritual dough. Without a word, Jennifer Galuber accepted the bowl and began to stuff herself. The frood, exhausted by his efforts, sat slumped wearily beside her, hardly watching. The rite proceeded as had the first. Quellen took part as before, without ever becoming involved in the action.

Afterward, Brose Cashdan approached Quellen and said softly, “Would you care to lead us in our next communion?”

“I’m sorry,” said Quellen. “I really can’t. I’ve got to leave soon.”

“I regret that. We had hoped you’d participate to the fullest.” Cashdan smiled dreamily and handed the bowl to someone else.

Quellen tugged at Judith’s wrist and drew her to one side. “Come home with me,” he whispered urgently.

“How can you think of sex here ?”

“You aren’t dressed chastely, you know. You’ve had two communions. Will you leave with me?”

“No,” she said firmly.

“If I wait until the next communion is over?”

“No. Not then. You’ll have to take communion yourself, as a celebrant, and mean it. Otherwise I’d feel no kinship to you later. Honestly, Joe, how can I give myself to a man I don’t relate to? It would be so utterly mechanical—it would harm us both.”

Her nakedness that was not nakedness stabbed at him. He could not bear to look down at the alluring slenderness of her body. With pain he said, “Don’t do this to me, Judith. Play fair. Let’s leave now.”

For answer, she turned away and rejoined her companions in the ritual pit. The third communion was about to begin. Cashdan looked invitingly at Quellen, who shook his head and quickly left the room. Outside, he glanced back through the transparent wall and saw Judith with her head thrown back and her lips parted in rapture. The Galubers likewise looked ecstatic. The image of Jennifer Galuber’s obese body burned its way indelibly into Quellen’s brain. He fled.

He was home not long after midnight, but his apartment gave him no comfort. He had to escape. Recklessly, he stepped into the stat field and let himself be hurled to Africa.

Morning had come, there. A light mistlike rain was falling, but the golden gleam of the sun cut through the grey haze. The crocodiles were in their usual places. A bird screeched. The leafy boughs, heavy with rain, trailed towards the rich wet black earth. Quellen tried to let the peace of the place enfold him. Kicking off his shoes, he walked down to the edge of the stream. The muck oozed voluptuously between his toes. Some small insect nipped at his calf. A frog leaped into the stream, making a pool of widening concentric circles in the dark surface of the water. One crocodile lazily opened a glistening eye. The sweet, heavy air surged into Quellen’s lungs.

He took no comfort in any of it.

This place was his, but he had not earned it. He had stolen it. He could have no real peace here. Behind him, in Appalachia, he likewise found no repose. The world was too .much with him, and he was too little of the world. He thought of Judith, sensuous in sprayon, ecstatic as she chewed the cud. She hates me, Quellen thought, or perhaps she pities me, but the effect is the same. She’ll never see me again.

He did not wish to remain in these pleasant surroundings while he was in such a mood.