“Did you eavesdrop?”
“Of course not.”
“How do you know then?”
“I know Mom, and I know Dad. She’s coming along all right.” Becca paused. “You know what? If the judge makes us go live with Mark, you and I should make his life hell. And his wife’s, if she’s like him. He’ll be glad to send us back here.”
Raquel’s eyes widened. “Do you think he will? The judge? Make us live with Mark?”
Becca grinned. “It might be kind of fun. I mean, we’d run rings around him, he’s so fixated and stupid. I remember him better than you do. You were barely four. But no, we won’t have to. I feel sure of it.”
PART THREE
THE MANIFESTATIONS
60
Evening Meeting
Lee was scheduled for a trip to Helsinki, with Mike Schuster of Legal and Jim Pendleton of Properties. There they’d meet with Finnish supporters interested in establishing a Helsinki center. From Finland they’d fly to Istanbul, to examine a proposal by the Turkish mental health movement for the first Millennium center in Islam.
Unrelated to the trip, a meeting set up on short notice was to be held in the admin building on the evening before she left. She knew about it, but attendance was not required, so she decided to stay home, have a brandy and go early to bed. At dawn, Bar Stool would fly Schuster, Pendleton and herself to Pueblo, to catch the 7:05 commuter flight to Denver International.
* * *
By Millennium standards, the tall west wall of the third-floor conference room was an extravagance, a floor-to-ceiling plate of thermal TuffGlass. It had withstood the blast of the Ninja Junior only 250 feet away on the opposite side of the building.
The drapes were opened, exposing the night sky; the conference tables had been removed, and chairs were lined out in rows. The attendees included the directors of the level one Millennium centers in North America, and the division and department heads at the Cote. About all the place could hold. And Bar Stool, whom Lor Lu had brought with him for no stated reason.
Dove stood before the window, watching them enter. Through sunglasses, as if something was wrong with his eyes. At his nod, the lights were slowly dimmed till they were out, and while they dimmed, he removed the sunglasses. Finally the room was lit solely by a slender moon. The tiny red lights of elevated camcorders glinted in the upper rear corners.
He glows in the dark, Bar Stool thought, like he’s got a colored mist of light around him. He’d seen Dove before in the near dark, but never seen him glow.
“Good evening,” Ngunda said. “I have important news to share with you. My ministry is over. I have done my part, prepared the way, and my departure is very near. Though it looks essentially the same, my body has been changing. You may be able to see its energy field now. It has been preparing itself to receive the Infinite Soul, at which point it will need to accommodate new spiritual and biological energies.
“That’s why I’ve been so reclusive these past several days.” He laughed. “In the process I’ve caught and surpassed even Lor Lu, our resident bodhisatva, in psychic perceptiveness.
“When the Assumption occurs, I myself will vacate, and move to the astral plane. And I wanted to see you, say goodbye to you, while I am still wearing this body, this good friend of mine and yours.”
His gaze took in his audience. “All of you are dear to me,” he told them, “and have important roles to play after mine is over—roles you are well prepared for. The things I’ll tell you here will not surprise you. You’ve heard or read them before, or known them intuitively. But repeating them under these circumstances will make them more powerful. As I am now more powerful.”
He paused. “I do not fully know what it will be like for you, when this body is occupied by the Infinite Soul. But you will feel a potent difference. You will know it is not me. It may or may not take some getting used to, but the avatar will be the personification of love. In fact, it will have a greater impact on you than on most others.”