46
The Monroe County District Court in New York had sent a registered fax to the Cote, ordering Lee to appear on Friday. Millennium’s lawyers were onto it, but meanwhile she needed to be ready.
It was dark when Ben met her at the airport in Pueblo, and drove her home in a company car. The girls knew nothing about what was going on, only that he’d be picking up their mom. They were spending the night with the Klein twins.
Lee was upset and worried. When they got home, they had a drink of brandy and Ben took her to bed. It was quite a while before they went to sleep.
Not surprisingly she dreamed of her daughters. In a disjointed sequence in which they were taken from her by Mark, by her parents, by Dove, by strangers . . . And not taken from her, or rescued, or . . . She’d wakened yelling and fighting from the first version, then she and Ben had had a large brandy each, to late night television, and gone back to bed. Where she’d reentered the dream sequence, barely wakening from time to time. Near the end she kept adjusting the dream script whenever necessary, and she awoke in something close to glee.
* * *
The next day, Lor Lu got a fax from Conroy, Morgenstern, and Blasingame. He took it promptly to Lee’s office; they’d gotten another delay. Their lawyers had no doubt they could beat this thing. Her ex-husband was persistent and had resources, but not a compelling case. Mrs. Shoreff had no cause for alarm.
Later, Ngunda stopped at her office.
“Lor Lu told me your ex-husband persists in troubling you. Perhaps I can help further.” He smiled. “Congressman Ron Craine, of New York’s 28th District, is a personal friend, and a friend of Millennium. And of course is well connected in the 28th District, particularly within the legal profession. I’ve just talked with him. He knows Judge Falcaro well, and will speak with him. Which does not guarantee anything, nor should it. But Ron will give him his viewpoint on Millennium, and at any rate it cannot hurt to have a congressman visibly in our corner.”
Again his visit left Lee feeling much better. He really is a good person, she thought, even if he does have some strange ideas.
47
From “Ngunda’s Room” in
New Age Wonks’ Clubhouse
Christian Seeker: We’re already well into the new millennium, so I suppose the New Messiah has already been born. What is there about the passage of 2,000 years that made it happen?
Dove: The passage of 2,000 years did not and will not cause either the birth of the child nor the assumption by the Infinite Soul. Rather, the events mark the convergence of certain processes and trends. Neither the birth, the assumption, nor the death, was or will be exactly 2,000 years after equivalent events in the time of Jesus. And the receptacle of the new avatar is already fully adult.
Christian Seeker: What important happenings of the Second Coming will match events prophesied in the Apocalypse of John?
Dove: None of them, except coincidently and very loosely.
Christian Seeker: Then how will we know whether a claimed second coming is the real thing?
Dove: You will know. By the acts and impacts of the avatar itself, and by a very major geophysical event which will coincide with the avatar’s death.
Don Samuelson: I hope you know your predictions are at odds with everybody else’s. Why should we believe you?
Dove: Why indeed? It’s not required that you believe. You will not be damned for disbelieving, or for anything else.
Don Samuelson: That sounds to me like a helluva wimpy religion.
Dove: It is not a religion at all, though you may think of it as one. Religions are a product of human beings, typically with a main goal of control, escape, or vindication, rather than enlightenment. And you are, of course, entitled to choose whatever religion you prefer, or whatever spiritual orientation. Including none at all. And to change your mind whenever you choose.
Skeptical in Muskogee: If each of us lives a whole string of lives, which of those bodies do we resurrect in?