When she peered down into the glass of whiskey, Kalico could see no facial features, just an outline of her head and hair against the gleam of the dome overhead.
Inga’s was full—the suppertime crowd having trooped in for whatever the kitchen offered. The place felt reassuring; the clank of mugs on chabacho wood, the tinking of silverware on plates, and the jovial calls from the miners and locals somehow came across as jarringly normal after her day on Ashanti.
She barely acknowledged Shig as he climbed onto the stool beside hers and flicked a finger Inga’s way for his traditional half glass of wine.
Kalico shot him a sidelong glance. “If there was ever a day when I’d expect you to drink a full glass, this is it.”
He shifted on the stool, expression thoughtful. “I’ve canvassed the literature. The Unreconciled are delightfully unique.”
“Excuse me?”
“They’ve taken an entirely novel approach to anthropophagy and mixed it with teleological eschatology.”
“Repeat that in a human language, please.”
“Religious philosophy has always preoccupied itself with what happens at the end of time. For Christians it’s the rapture, the four horsemen, and judgment day. End of Days for the Muslims, or perhaps the return of the Twelfth Imam for the Shia. In Hindu mythology Kali and Shiva destroy the fourth cycle and restart time at the end of the Kali Yuga. Among the Central Americans, it was the turning of the Katun, the great wheel of time. For the Zoroastrians, a monster comes to destroy the world. The Norse thought it would be Ragnarok, the battle of the gods.”
“Got it.”
Shig gave Inga a smile as she placed his half glass of wine on the bar before lumbering off to mark it on her board.
“Usually,” Shig said, “the end is preceded by an apocalypse. You know, the usual chaos of famines, plagues, warfare, boiling oceans, maybe a meteor, or flood, or wildfires. Cannibalism? Consuming the universe, purifying it through digestion and sexual reproduction? Becoming a living grave for the dead you have consumed? That’s remarkably novel and innovative.”
“How can you be so jazzed over something that creep-freaked me half out of my skin?”
He gave her a wink, his other eye twinkling with amusement. “When I was young, I was constantly amazed by the workings of the religious mind. It doesn’t matter what the tradition, each one depends on some mystical acceptance that defies common sense: an immaculate conception; a great tree that holds up the sky; gods who can change sexes and colors; bringing the dead back to life; emerging from a hole in the earth; or maybe they fell from the sky. No matter how outlandish, people choose to believe this stuff. Can’t help it really.”
“That’s why The Corporation regulated religion as thoroughly as it did. No one has ever figured out whether—when you chalk up the total body count—religions or governments killed more billions or caused greater suffering. When you get into those kinds of numbers, it’s a wash. Both are equally dangerous to human life, liberty, prosperity, and happiness.”
“The Unreconciled are proof of that.” Shig fingered his glass. “I’ve studied cults like the Aghori Hindus who seek to immerse themselves in corpses as a means of achieving purification. By embracing death and corruption, they seek to attain a state of non-duality. The hope is that it will help them break the eight great bonds that keep the soul from achieving moksha. Um, moksha is the transition into illumination, emancipation, and spiritual fulfillment.”
“But not cannibalism?”
“Only by a matter of degree. The Aghori may ingest something derived from a corpse, but in doing so, they’re hoping to find their own illumination. Not acting for the benefit of another by eating a whole person in an attempt to purify him or her.”
Kalico suppressed a sense of panic. “These were normal, everyday people, Shig. What we saw . . .”
Shig stared thoughtfully at the back bar. “Understand that as bizarre as their beliefs are, those people reflect the horror and despair they lived every day for seven years. The transportees didn’t have enough to eat, so they ate each other. To assuage the guilt, they chose to believe they were keeping the dead alive within themselves.
“And the entire time each of them was asking, ‘Why did this have to happen to me?’ The only thing that made sense was that the universe chose them specifically for the purpose of bringing about its renewal. The reason their ordeal had to be so terrible was because of the grand scope of their coming endeavor: universal purification and renewal. Not only did that assuage survivor’s guilt, but it made their actions inevitable and heroic.”
“What was with the white makeup? The too-much jewelry? Being buck-assed naked? Is Batuhan out of his fricking mind?”
Shig arched a knowing brow. “Everything he did in that display was calculated. The white color? Symbolic of purity? Accented by the black eyes and mouth? Perhaps to represent a living corpse? And he wanted you to see the scarification, the lines leading to his penis. Death and sex, the ancient dance and balance of life.”
“Then what was with the jewelry? He said it was taken from the dead.”
“That they might be witness. In place of a name, he wore a possession from the dead.”
“You ask me, they were nothing more than a collection of trophies. The kind a serial killer keeps as mementos of his victims.”
“Anything but. That man believes.”
“So, how do we fix them? Reprogram them?”
“You don’t. At least, not on Donovan. A psychiatric hospital in Solar System might. For now, this cult of theirs is how they cope. Maybe, in a couple of years, you might start trying to talk sense to them.”
She sighed. “Let me guess. You’re telling me that offering counsel to them now would be a waste of time because they’re too close to it. Bonded by a rite of passage. They’d just see it as an attack and hunker down on the core belief.”
“Correct.”
“A true believer? Is that why Batuhan had to be such an arrogant prick? It’s like he was purposefully picking a fight. Daring me to do my worst. What would possess him to act like such a hard ass?”
“You really don’t know?”
“Do I look like I do?”
“It’s the only defense he has. Sheer blind faith in himself and his cause. Unwavering, unquestioned. As his makeup symbolized, it’s all black and white.”
“Come on, even mystics question. Can carry on give-and-take conversations.”
“Not when they’re scared.”
She gave him a disbelieving glare. “Batuhan? Scared?”
“Oh, yes, Supervisor. If you ask me, that’s the most frightened man I’ve ever seen. Shaken, terrified right down to his bones. His nightmare—the terrible fear that haunts his soul—is that he’s unworthy, incapable of attaining the task before him.”
“Came across as pretty sure of himself and his cause.”
Shig’s expression turned thoughtful. “Most great mystics are terrified. What they often call ‘The Dark Night of the Soul.’ Or sometimes, ‘The Cloud of Unknowing.’ It’s the sense of being unworthy of the task God has chosen for them. Think St. John of the Cross, or St. Teresa of Calcutta. The only defense Batuhan has against his gnawing and deep-seated self-doubt is to project a complete, absolute, and unwavering certainty in his cause. The greater his self-insecurity, the more absolute and unbending his public face will be. His greatest fear will be that his mask will slip, that someone will glimpse his terror.”
“Shig, seriously, do you think that putting them down out at Tyson Station is the best thing we can do? Even telling them what to watch out for, half of them will be dead within six months.”
Shig lifted his glass of wine, touched it to his lips, but she wasn’t sure that he actually tasted it.
After he placed it back on the bar, he said, “Supervisor, Donovan is all about making the best decision out of nothing but bad choices. Do you choose what is just, what is moral, or what is correct?”
“God, I hate you sometimes.”
“That’s why being me is so much fun.”