Chapter 34
Astral Travel
According to ancient chronicles of magic, kept in the technocratic Armored Archives, many centuries ago there was a group of powerful magicians who, unable to bear the corruption of this world, the lack of religiosity, and the neglect with which people punished their gods, went to other planets in the system through teleportation. Some even traveled beyond Alpha Centauri, refusing to return. Others, in order to investigate, performed astral travels to the times of Nero, to Babylon, or Nineveh; but enemy magicians cut the silver cord that bound them to their bodies with mercury, and they died, unable to return. Finally, there were those who, disillusioned with everything, traveled to remote ages long past to see events as if in a dream, without participating or embodying that past, but rather observing everything, living without living, in a state of contemplation, for centuries. Upon reaching their time, they followed the natural evolution and died without having emerged from that false dream.
Decameron of Gaula Iseka awoke from an astral journey. At his side, assisting him, was Coco Iseka. The latter said:
----You had a productive journey, but I was exhausted. I've never done so much work together. I went to the past and the future. ----I look at Coco, now fully awake. ----It seems that in about twenty days, the secretary general of the CTOG of Soria will be assassinated.
Coquito was thrilled.
----Ah, how lucky.
----I don't know if it's lucky,----De Gaula replied.----And they're blaming the Technocracy? An international incident could occur.
----Don't tell me, maestro, that you're going to protect that Soria.
----No, I'm going to protect him. I've got enough work to do here. But let me tell you everything. I also traveled to Nineveh. I wanted to witness the last moments of King Sardanapalus. I was very interested. I was very impressed with the Delacroix painting.
----And was Sardanapalus like in the painting?
----Quite similar, only younger. Besides, his wives weren't four or five like there, but close to six hundred. They wanted to die. They were happy to be with him. They were very beautiful women. Very, very beautiful. Completely naked, wearing only a gold anklet on one of their ankles. The horses were very beautiful. He loved them very much. How painful it must have been for him to have them treated. Afterward, he gave himself up to be burned. He could have sought another end, committing suicide, or whatever. But he didn't want to break his word or for the others to think he was afraid.
----And did you hear what they were saying?
----Perfectly. I didn't understand, of course, but I listened to them anyway. Understanding what they were talking about would have required me to expend much more energy. In other words, I didn't understand the details, but I did understand the drama in general.
Thanks to the long astral projection of that day, De Gaulle was able to make several prophecies. He sent a few of these to the Monitor—only those that might interest him as a scholar—in a sealed envelope protected by armor.
According to De Gaula, the Technocracy would soon be at war with Soria. As for the Soviets, their behavior was strange. The magician couldn't see well. The Russians, in the astral, had emotionally joined Soria at the beginning of the hostilities, just as expected. But something strange was happening. Apparently, they had decided to declare war almost nominally, to keep their promise, without making it too effective for the moment. They sent twenty divisions to Soria, as part of the pact they had with this nation. The Soriator expected a minimum of two hundred, so he was severely disappointed. Clearly, his Russian friends were trying to buy time: for Soria to serve as a dam while they continued arming.
I warned you five days in advance about the assassination of the secretary of the Soria Workers' Central—I'd known about it for fifteen days, but before reporting it, I wanted to find out other things—and that this would cause a dangerous international incident, although war wasn't going to break out for that reason. According to the astral, the man would be assassinated on the orders of Soria Soriator himself, and for three reasons. First: the fiercely anti-Soviet tendencies of the general secretary, which compromised Soria's international policy. Second: once again, the unions had excessive power in this country, and Soriator was prepared to clip their wings forever (apparently, the secretary in question didn't learn from other people's mistakes—I'm referring to the destruction of the Twelve Lineages—and needed his own final lesson). Third: it was an excellent opportunity to blame the Monitor and galvanize the people against the Technocracy.
He also informed him about the secret delusions of the Soria Soriator, which not even his own kratos knew about: his idolatry of the Arab leader Almanzor, for example; also his sexual deviation, which allowed him to reach the highest level of erotic arousal only when defecating on the body of his loved one; and also the Soriator's passion for the deceased poetess Luz Soledad Ferreira Perfecta Soria, for whose death the dictator blamed the technocratic head of state. According to him, the latter had ordered his magicians to manipulate the woman into committing suicide and thus ruin his enemy's happiness. Upon learning this, the Monitor was astonished: for the first time in his life he had heard mention of that Soria. The statesman also learned, thanks to De Gaula, of the deep personal hatred the other held for him. Loathing, but not like the kind you might feel for a political enemy, but a true obsession. Finally, some revealing details about the Soriator's intimate life, such as that he had his "girlfriend," rotting away, encased in a block of molten plastic.
This information inspired a convulsion of mixed and contradictory emotions in the Monitor. Regarding the upcoming war, it was out of the question; it was necessary to be strong and clever. The strongest. He could do nothing, on the other hand, to prevent Soriator's plans regarding the secretary of the Soria Workers' Central, nor was he interested. As for Soria Soriator himself, he felt several things: pity, fury, contempt, admiration at times, and—this was the strangest thing—even affection. He would have decided to help him. Send him a woman as masochistic as he was, and they would be happy. Or send him a robot, if he couldn't find someone who possessed the right characteristics. Of course, all of this was impossible, due to the Soriator's distrust. As soon as he learned—thanks to his magicians—that the Monitor had sent her, he would have her killed with torture and then send her vulva in a glass by return mail if it was a woman; or he would order even the screws to be destroyed if it was a robot. Because he knew the other was like that: impulsive and brutal; it wouldn't even occur to him that the Monitor had sent her with good intentions. Even if his magicians told him so, he wouldn't believe them.
Sometimes, when he wanted to find out certain things related to the Sorian or Russian esoteric societies, De Gaula found his astral body blocked. His enemies, also very powerful, surrounded some areas with the protection of an exorcism to make them impenetrable. But De Gaula was so strong that, even without help from the other members of the Great Mozart, sooner or later he managed to find out what he wanted.
Sometimes, when he delved into the future or the past, he inadvertently discovered unexpected things. Trivial things, many of them. On one occasion, for example, while trying to isolate details of important battles in the future war—so that the Monitor could win it—he fell into this astral plane:
A bivouac, with technocratic soldiers. It was nighttime and very cold. The soldiers were talking around the fire.
One of them said:
----But no, really, who wrote the pornographic tango? What nerve did the old lady have?
An Iseka with a sergeant's saddlebags:
----There's a second title, in a tourist version, censored and cultured, for the prudish, prudish fools who visited. Monitoring before the war: What an impossible concavity the weak old woman had. I don't really know who the author is.
"It's attributed to Professor Iseka tit () 002: "licensed to touch tits," as he himself said, referring to the double-zero prefix followed by a two in his last name. Plagiarizing James Bond was one of his most prized and witty jokes.
"The story of Professor Iseka was tragic. Once, he was walking through a flowery square full of birds on a very sunny and hot day. At that moment, he was thinking about differential equations as long as half-meter-long chocolates, when a girl with two very large breasts passed by.
" "She wasn't wearing a bra and almost all the buttons on her blouse were undone. Suddenly she stopped and bent down to drink water from a fountain. Since the aforementioned woman and her front were at a very special angle to Professor Iseka, he had a very good look at them for almost a minute. He felt an icy hand squeezing his heart and testicles. Far from increasing the size of the real thing, it showed a clear tendency to transform into an imaginary, or abstract, object by contracting to its minimum expression. He realized that his entire life had been a mistake and, the next day, he abandoned his mathematics chair forever. As if the poor mathematics were to blame for what was happening to him, look at what a huge animal. He would have left himself, in any case. But, anyway, as I was saying. After abandoning it, completely demoralized, he dedicated himself to emblazoned dried apricots. I had . . .
At the end of his strength, Decameron de Gaula Iseka raced back at full speed and awoke from his astral body. He was very tired, and to top it all off, the last part of his work—which was very long—had been lost when he ventured into a place he wasn't looking for. Anyway, he smiled. He would have liked to know more about Professor Iseka teta (0) 002. "Since none of that has happened yet, when it actually happens it will be a little different," he told himself. De Gaula was one of the four magicians in the Technocracy who refused to participate in the magic show of the attempt to penetrate the Mysterious Jungle. "But how? Aren't you going to contribute your power to the energy cone we're forming to break the blockade?" other magicians asked him. "No." "But...why?! "Because not." He refused to give further explanations.
When the Sorias, technocrats, and Russians failed in their attempt, De Gaula simply smiled. Seeing his enigmatic expression, Coco asked:
----Why do you make that face, Master?
----A Zen monk smiles at certain things.
----And what's in the jungle? Do you know?
----Of course, de Gaula replied. Then, giving Coco a meaningful look, he said, "And you should know too."
Coquito was astonished:
----Me? What would I know, Master?
----I don't see why not. You and everyone else have more information than necessary to understand, and yet you don't understand. Ask it this way, Coco: who can live in a place that men cannot penetrate?" The other began to understand---- It's like a place from which man has exiled himself; therefore, he is expelled every time he tries to occupy it without belonging. Only an earthly man or woman would have access to the entrance.
Coco, who by this point was cultured in several ways, finally understood fully:
----And will we never be able to enter the... lost territory, let's say?
----Not if we don't first defeat the Anti-being.
The disciple, with a smile—Coco's lucidity didn't last long—asked, pretending to be funny:
----And you, master? Were you ever there?
----How could I have been there if the men, who should have accompanied me, weren't there?
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