The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

“The pilot noticed nothing. Apparently, I wasn’t showing my feelings. And that was the last time I had any experience like that.”

Nur said, “Apparently these mystical states had no influence on your behavior or your outlook?”

“Did I become better because of them? No.”

Nur said, “The states you describe are akin to what we call tajalli. But your tajalli is a counterfeit. If it had resulted in a permanent state, by self-development in the right path, then it would have been a true tajalli. There are several forms of false or wasteful tajalli. You experienced one of these.”

“Does that mean,” Frigate said, “that I am incapable of ex­periencing the true form?”

“No. At least you felt some form of it.”

They fell silent for a while. Frisco, hidden under a pile of cloths, muttered something in his sleep.

Suddenly, Frigate said, “Nur, for some time I’ve been wonder­ing if you’d accept me as your disciple.”

“And why didn’t you ask me?”

“I was afraid of being rejected.”

There was another silence. Nur checked the altimeter and turned on the vernian for a minute. Pogaas shook aside his blankets and stood up. He lit a cigarette, the glow of his lighter throwing strange lights and shadows on his face. It looked like the head of a sacred hawk cut from black diorite by ancient Egyptians.

“Well?” Frigate said.

“You’ve always thought of yourself as a seeker after truth, haven’t you?” Nur said.

“Not a steady seeker. I’ve drifted too much, floated along like a balloon. Most of the time I’ve taken life as it was or seemed to be. Occasionally, I’ve made determined efforts to investigate and even practice this and that philosophy, discipline, or religion. But my enthusiasms would subside, and I’d forget about them. Well, not entirely. Sometimes an old enthusiasm would flare up, and I’d drive myself again toward the desired goal. Mostly, though, it’s just been floating with the winds of laziness and indifference.”

“You become detached?”

“I tried to be intellectually detached even when my emotions fired me up.”

“To achieve true detachment, you must be free from both emo­tion and intellect. It’s evident that, though you pride yourself on a lack of preconceptions, you have them. If I did take you as a disciple, you’d have to put yourself absolutely under my control. No matter what I ask, You must do it at once. Wholeheartedly.”

Nur paused. “If I asked you to jump out of this car, would you do so?”

“Hell, no!”

“Nor would I do so. But what if I ask you to do something which is the intellectual or emotional equivalent of jumping out of the car? Something which you’d regard as intellectual or emotional sui­cide?”

“I won’t know until you ask me.”

“I wouldn’t ask you until I thought you were ready. If indeed you ever will be.”

Pogaas had been looking out of a port. He grunted and then said, “There’s a light out there! It’s moving!”

Frigate and el-Musafir joined him. Tex and Frisco, aroused by their excited voices, got up and stared sleepily out another port.

A long shape, at about the same altitude as the balloon, was silhouetted against a bright stellar cloud.

Frigate said, “It’s a dirigible!”,

Of all the things they’d seen on The Riverworld, this was the strangest and most unexpected.

“There’re lights near its prow,” Rider said.

“It can’t be from New Bohemia,” Frigate said.

“Then there is another place where metals have been found,” Nur said.

“Unless it’s one They built!” Farrington said. ,”It may not be an airship, it’s just built like one.”

One of the lights near the nose of the vessel began blinking. After looking at it for a minute, Frigate said, “It’s Morse code!”

“What’s it saying?” Rider said.

“I don’t know Morse code.”

“Then how do you know it’s Morse?”

“By the length of the pulses. Long and short.”

Nur left the port to return to the vernian. He shut it off, and now the only sound was the heavy breathing of the crew. They watched the great, sinister-looking shape turn and move directly toward them. The light continued blinking. Nur ignited the torch for about twenty seconds. When he turned it off, he started toward the port again. But he stopped suddenly, and he said sharply, “Don’t anybody make a noise!”