Morning was clear and calm. Caroline suggested that instead of turning west on the interstate and heading immediately for California, they go through Flagstaff and down into Oak Creek Canyon.

“I’ve always wanted to see Sedona,” she explained. “While I was living in Safford people kept telling me how beautiful it is.”

“Never heard of it.” Ross Ed shifted the alien body on his lap.

“We have to turn south sooner or later anyway if we’re going to San Diego.”

He shrugged. “It’s your van, Caroline.”

Her expression turned somber. “I know, but they’re your troubles, Ross Ed. I wouldn’t make any decisions without your okay.”

He smiled appreciatively. “Let’s do it.”

Oak Creek Canyon was a south-running green-veined slash in the surface of Mother Earth. The small river at the bottom was lined with giant sycamores, oaks, and all manner of lush vegetation that belied the alpine landscape which covered the spectacular surrounding buttes. When the canyon finally opened out into a vast spray of carmine, russet, and vermilion cliffs and pinnacles, the sight was truly breathtaking.

A small restaurant calling itself Shugrue’s Hillside served up a fabulous view and the best food they’d had in days. The location also let them keep a simultaneous eye on the van and the single highway running through town. There was no sign of any pursuit; no solemn-visaged military types in mufti, no wide-eyed saucer fruitcakes, no homicidal grandparents from the heartland. For the first time in a week he felt comparatively safe.

Although they knew it would behoove them not to linger in any one place for too long, they let the waiter convince them that they simply must drive up to the local airport. Scraped our of a fiat-topped mountain, it afforded the most sublime view in town.

After Caroline finished her second fresh raspberry mousse in a summer basket made of chocolate meringue, they made the short drive. Following the waiter’s directions, they parked in the airport motel lot and started along the trail which led to the designated overlmk, Ross Ed once again not trusting Jed to the locked van and packing him on his back. The rock beneath their feet was the color of powdered rust.

Though it was a brief hike, they were still surprised to find half a dozen visitants of varying age and gender seated on bare rock in a neat semicircle facing the sweeping panorama of mountains and town. Clad in low-cut fringed buckskin, beads, sandals, and a headband straight out of the sixties, the young woman in her late twenties who had been sitting cross-legged facing the semicircle rose to greet them.

“Sweet blessings attend you.” Instead of shaking Ross Ed’s hand, she bowed slightly. “I am Sharona.”

“Uh, nice to meet you. I’m Ross Ed, this here is Caroline.”

Sharona turned and gestured with her right hand. “Please, won’t you join the circle? We were just on the verge of invoking.”

A dubious Caroline noted that the five figures who formed the semicircle were now holding hands. “Just a second. What kind of ‘circle’ is this?”

The woman smiled beatifically, an expression which seemed permanently affixed to her face. “Why, it is the circle of contemplation of the Great Mysterium, of course.” She made an effort to conceal her condescension, but not much of one.

“Sure it is,” Ross Ed acknowledged.

“It may be that as strangers you do not know that Sedona is one of the seven great power centers of the planet Earth. There are many vortexes here. Meditating atop one can improve one’s health, state of mind, and financial prospects, as well as providing insight into the Great Mysterium. On such a journey it is useful to have a guide. I am such a guide,” she concluded, without becoming (or any other sort of) modesty.

Twitching as if he’d just spotted a rattler coiled beneath the bush in front of him, Ross Ed started to back away. It was an instinctive reaction (not to mention the pertinent one), but a curious Caroline restrained him.

“Hold on now, Ross Ed. It’s a dynamite view, and a little contemplation of the Great Mysterium certainly won’t hurt you.”

“I dunno about that.” He’d always been leery of people who joined hands in semicircles. But she was right about the view. Besides, what harm could it do? They could enjoy the scenery while studiously ignoring the contemplating.

Putting her palms together in front of her, Sharona blessed their presence while Ross Ed took the occasion to meditate briefly on the surging cleavage her pose revealed. Maybe it was no Great Mysterium, but it was sure worth a moment’s contemplation.

Additional blessings were shared among the assembled as the guide resumed her yoga stance opposite. Resting her palms on her knees, she closed her eyes and began chanting. Now more than ever, Ross Ed’s natural instinct was to get up and run.

Caroline, however, was holding his lefi hand along with the right of the man next to her as she and Ross extended the semicircle. He leaned over and whispered.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Breathe deeply.” Eyes shut tight, Sharona proceeded to demonstrate most impressively. “Close your eyes. Feel the forces rising from within Mother Earth. It them flow into you, through you. Be suffused with the energy so that you may leave herr a better person than when you came!”

Ross whispered again to Caroline, who had her eyes shui. “I’ve got this com on my big left lv. Think this’ll get rid of

“Hush!” She squeezed his hand. “You’re not giving this a fair

Several responses sprang immediately to mind, all of which he sensibly repressed. “How about you? Feel any energy rising?”

“If you can’t participate, just look at the view,” she hissed at him.

“Can I do that? I’m supposed to have my eyes shut.”

“So cheat a little. You’re not entering into the spirit of the occasion anyway.”

“Is that the force of the vortex, or your fingernails I’m feeling?” he asked. She didn’t reply.

They sat like that for some time, until Ross Ed had had about all the meditation, contemplation, energy vortex force, and view he could stand. At last Sharona broke the silence, her eyes still shut.

“Speak to us. O voices of Gaia! Speak to our innermost longings. Show us the True Path to the Inner Light.”

“Okay,” said a disembodied voice.

Several of the sealed blinked. It was to their credit for something else) that the others kept their eyes closed. One man started to rise, but those flanking him gripped his hands tightly and held him in place.

Unable to resist the opportunity, Ross Ed was throwing his voice again, making it sound as if it originated from Jed. He wasn’t sure how he came up with some of the things he said, but as usual it all seemed to fit together appropriately.

A well-dressed woman in her early sixties spoke up from the far side of the semicircle. “O Voices of the Earth, tell me: will I be young and beautiful in my next reincarnation? I, who am the many-times distant great-granddaughter of Neraiep of Mu.”

Ross Ed heard his Jed voice replying. “You’re not the many-times distant great-granddaughter of Neraiep of Mu. You’re the many-times distant great-granddaughter of Edwinna, daughter of Wentworth, a farmer in the Cotswolds. She wasn’t particularly comely either, but it doesn’t matter, since there’s no such thing as reincarnation. So you’d better enjoy this life while you can, because when you’re dead, woman, you’re dead. You can’t even come back as a puppy.”

Mercilessly skewered by this response, the outraged matron opened her eyes to stare murderously at Ross. She was about to offer a rebuttal when the attractive woman in her thirties who was seated in the middle of the semicircle interrupted.

“Speak to me, O Voices! I am a miserable trader of stocks and bonds. Will the market steady and rise over the next six months?”

Eyes still closed, Sharona commented disapprovingly. “That is not a query worthy of the Great Light. Here we decry crass materialism. Here we—”

The Jed voice overrode her protestations. “It doesn’t matter, because unless you move your ass right quick, Hendricks is going to find out about the six hundred thousand you’ve siphoned off the Baxter and Rozensweig accounts. Unless you can find a way to restore the missing funds, the only Great Light you’re going to be seeing in six months will be the kind that’s filtered through metal bars.”

Dropping her hands and opening her eyes, the stunned stockbroker gawked at Ross. He, however, had his eyes shut and was to all outward appearances meditating ferociously. The smile on his face was a decent approximation of the guide’s.

“How did…?” The woman scrambled to her feet, nearly falling in the process. “Excuse me, I have to make a phone call.” Thanks to her two-hundred-dollar walking shoes, she was out of sight in minutes, racing toward the airport motel.

Sharona sighed reluctantly. “Close the circle. The path must not be broken.” Complying with her directions, the remaining supplicants edged close enough to reform the chain of hands. “Please. No more inquiries unless they are worthy of the Forces and the True Spirit of the vortex.”

No one said anything for several minutes, until a portly gentleman could no longer restrain herself.

“Tell me, O Voices, of my daughter. She died last year, aged eleven. Cancer.” His voice. Ross Ed thought, was remarkably even and controlled. “Why do such things have to happen? Will she ever come back to me? Will I meet her again in the Afterlife?”