* * *
Millicent turned in at her drive and pulled up to the house. A restaurant was fine for a meeting, as she had said over the phone, but it was too public for anything more than a chat.
Tobias N'Dibe pulled his car up at the side of the road a moment later and walked in after her. Millicent thought that the lawn could use another mowing at the weekend, and considered again the possibility of getting a gardener. She let herself into the house and held the door open for the big African.
"Coffee?" she asked.
"Decaffeinated, please," said N'Dibe, and he sat down as Millicent went into the kitchen to put on the electric percolator. She put a couple of scoops of decaff coffee grounds into the metal basket and wondered again whether to splash out on one of the combined machines that froth the milk as well. She flipped the switch and turned.
"Okay," she said from the kitchen door. "I've told you I need to locate the Porsche, but you haven't told me how you're going to find it."
"I am not going to find it," NDibe said. "You are. It is possible I could do it. I have experimented with various peripheral skills and have done such things quite successfully in the past. However, it is you that has an uncontrolled psychism which disturbs you and probably your colleagues as well."
The coffee finished perculating and Millicent put the perculator on a tray with the cups, milk and sugar. She carried the tray into the living room and poured without saying anything. There was a slight tension in the atmosphere that didn't lend itself to conversation but, as Millicent sat down, she said, "All right. So what do you intend to do?"
N'Dibe was always slow and measured. Now he took a sip of his drink, added a little more sugar, stirred it and took another sip to satisfy himself. Only when his drink was to his satisfaction did he look at Millicent and reply.
"Remote viewing, as done by experienced viewers in the US Army experiments, required no special preparation or equipment," he said. "Just around fifteen minutes of relaxation into the right frame of mind. However," he continued, "we want to bring your natural talent under control at the same time. I am going to use music and a theta pulse, against which background I intend to give some accompanying instructions and commentary to put you in touch with you own higher self."
"You mean hypnotism?" Millicent said doubtfully.
"Not at all," N'Dibe answered. "Apart from any question of efficacy in these circumstances, we are trying to establish your control over your experiences. To do that you must be in full charge of your own consciousness."
He produced a CD from the diminutive briefcase by his side. "In a minute or so I shall play this CD. The music has a pulse under it and the rhythm of your brainwaves will follow it. You have a player handy?"
"The music centre," Millicent said.
N'Dibe nodded. "Put the CD in, but don't start it yet," he said
Millicent took the CD, turned on the music centre and put it in. "All you do is press the play button," she said, indicating a clearly marked button. "Now what?"
"I want you to sit down in an easy chair and relax completely."
Millicent sat down and leaned back. She didn't feel all that relaxed. "What do I do with my hands?" she asked.
"Place them one on each thigh. Now screw your muscles up as tensely as you can. First you lower legs, then your thighs. Now relax them. Tighten all the muscles in your stomach and back, then let them go."
Millicent obeyed, tensing herself and knotting her muscles, then relaxing them.
"Now your shoulders neck and face. Tense all the muscles and then relax."
N'Dibe crossed to the music centre a pressed the play button. Soft, rather aimless music and a steady pulse began.
"You are going to relax no more than actors before an improvisation or Accelerated Learning students before a language class," N'dibe said. "The pulse you can hear is about that of a normal waking brain wave. We're just going to slow it down a little."
"Breathe in and hold it ... Let it out slowly, feeling all the tensions in your legs drain away. Breathe in and hold it ... Let it out slowly, feeling all the tensions in your arms drain away."
NDibe had a deep and pleasantly melodious voice and Millicent did as he said, feeling luxuriously relaxed, but in no way surrendering control. The pulsing sound was slowing.
"Close your eyes and imagine you are walking along a path in the warm sunlight," he said. "Birds are singing and there is the sound of insects. There are trees and flowers and there is the sound of water flowing somewhere off to the left. The path runs through a valley and you follow it, but it turns uphill, gently at first, then more steeply."
The pulsing sound was much slower now and it was easy for her to see the images in her minds eye.
"The path climbs steadily now, with steps at the steeper points. 1! You are climbing up the side of a high hill or low mountain. 2! You are still relaxed and climbing the path requires no effort. 3! Ahead of you, higher up, is the wall of a building or enclosed garden and the path ends at a door. 4! The door is slightly open and a doorkeeper stands watching your approach. 5! He or she is silent but friendly and welcoming. 6! You are nearly at the top, still relaxed and enjoying the climb. 7! As you approach nearer you make a gesture of greeting and the doorkeeper bows slightly in acknowledgement. 8! You are there. 9!
"You do not need to explain, but you do. The door is a portal to many places and you explain that tonight you wish to go to where this vehicle, about which you are concerned, can be found. The doorkeeper bows again and holds the door open wide. You go through. Beyond all is blue. You can come back to the here and now at any time by counting from 1 to 3 and saying "Wide awake" twice. You are surrounded by a blue nothingness and you sink slowly to the ground, through the blueness and the clouds to a reality."
"Now," N'Dibe said, "Keep your eyes closed, but look around you in your mind and tell me where you are."
Millicent was faced with a haze of images and impressions. "Inside, I think," she said. "In some kind of workshop."
"Do you see shapes or patterns around you?"
"Yes. There are T shaped things and ... cars. Yes, cars on the T shaped things. They're ramps." Millicent sounded excited. "I think I'm in a garage."
"Good," he said. "Better than we had any right to hope at the first try. I'm going to ask your impressions about various things and I want you to answer without rationalising.
First, what city do you think you are in?" NDibe asked.
"Bradford, I think."
"When?"
"Now I imagine." Millicent sounded surprised by the question.
"So your victim's vehicle is in a garage in Bradford?"
"Yes," she said, rather taken aback that she was so sure.
"And is it there legally?"
Millicent paused this time. She looked around in her imagination. No, this was not legal. There was something dark about it. She still hesitated.
"Don't rationalise," N'Dibe advised her again. "Our conscious minds try to find the logical and explicable to hold onto. This isn't either logical or explicable in ordinary terms, so your logical mind may well be wrong."
"I don't think I'm rationalising," Millicent said. "It's just that I'm getting more than one impression. I think it's something criminal and it either has been, or will shortly be, raided."
"Very good," N'Dibe said. "I think you have enough to go on. You can ask around whether anyone in Bradford Division is planning a raid on a garage, or has recently raided one. I want you to count up to 3 and say wide awake twice."
Millicent counted under her breath but said "wide awake" audibly. At the second saying of the words, N'Dibe switched off the tape and she sat there, blinking but relaxed and unmoving.
"So," N'Dibe said, "You have completed your first deliberate remote viewing session. I think it has been much more successful than either of us had reason to hope."
"It wasn’t a nice simple answer, but it does explain why the interest report didn't produce anything."
"From m
y own impressions and feelings," N'Dibe said, "it would not surprise me if the car was stolen and is being re-sprayed."
"It's given me something to work on, anyway. More coffee?"
"Mmm," said NDibe. "I'd rather have ... err ...ice cream, if you've got it. I find it very good after Remote Viewing."
"I think I have some left," she said, going into the kitchen and opening the freezer to investigate. "Yes, there's nearly half a tub of strawberry ripple."
"Oh very suitable," NDibe remarked.
Millicent scooped some into a glass bowl, popped in a spoon and carried it through to Tobias, who sighed with contentment.
"Does ice cream help remote viewing?" she asked.
"Ice cream? Good gracious no, not as far as I know. I just happen to like it, that's all."
"But you said just now that it was very good after remote viewing.
"So it is, my dear, so it is. In fact it's very good at any time."
He dug into the ice cream with a smile of pleasure and added, "I think we have earned it this evening."
"Tell me," Millicent said over the second cup of coffee, "Why were you concerned about psychedelic drugs, when shamans of every variety use drugs as a way of achieving the visions of other worlds they seem to need. Are they somehow primitive?"
"We all sprang from the creative source and every path - Shamanic, Christian, Buddhist, Islamic and so on - every path back to the creator, has union with the divine as its objective. We each must choose the correct path for us. Too many fundamentalists of every religion think that, because it is the right path for them it is the right path for everyone."
"What you have to recognise," N'Dibe continued, "is that the rules of life for a particular path are not necessarily rules of life for any other path. You cannot easily control involuntary psychism however you deal with it. The shaman controls it in ways that do not fit at all with the Western Mystery Tradition I follow. I will not consider working with anyone who has used hard or psychedelic drugs recreationally. That is not true of other people on other paths."
"So someone who experimented with LSD in their teens is barred for life from your path?" Millicent said doubtfully.
"I said recreationally," NDibe pointed out. "To experiment once is not the same thing as regular use for recreational purposes or even regular use for medical purposes. Nevertheless, it would make their way upon the path I follow more difficult."
"I see," Millicent said, nodding slowly. "But I don't see why it is that so many different paths all work? Why do we need more than the one path? After all, the destination is the same."
N'Dibe showed no sign of impatience. "The best simile I can find is water," he said. "Water will always find its level. It will use an existing channel if there is one or cut its own new one if none exists. The reason the cult of the Virgin Mary was so immediately successful is that it used the same channel as the worship of Isis. It is not in the least sacrilegious to point out that the emotions felt by followers of either cult were similar to the emotions felt by followers of the other."
"I feel as if I'm waking from a long dream," Millicent remarked.
"Perhaps you are at a good age to wake up," N'Dibe observed. "According to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the whole purpose of life is to become aware that material existence is a dream and that you must live repeated lives until you waken from the outer reality and become aware of the significance of the inner reality."
"Hmm," said Millicent. "And Sunday is part of the wakening process?"
"You might indeed say that," N'Dibe agreed. "Now, about Sunday. I will leave you these papers to read through and Judith and I will call round to see you Saturday evening for about an hour or so to talk through the details, if that's convenient. On Sunday I will call for you about six pm, if that is agreeable to you."