Pathways - Jeri Taylor [21]
In the end, he asked his father to help him choose. In truth, he wanted someone to make this choice for him; he was too young, too inexperienced to make it for himself. He needed a helping hand.
“I’ll do whatever you say,” he said to Kolopak one day in late summer, when the heat rose in shimmering planes from the ground, and all the animals were still, taking refuge from the searing sun. Chakotay was confident his father would make his decision. Hadn’t he spent his life trying to tell his son how he should live?
But Kolopak squinted into the sun for several moments as Chakotay felt a drop of perspiration trickle down the left side of his neck to his shoulder blade, then down his back. Finally, his father turned to look at him, his eyes, as always, shining with love when he regarded his son.
“The time is past when I can make your choices for you,” he said. “You must choose your own path now, for only you can walk it.”
Chakotay deflated. Now, when he needed guidance, his father wouldn’t provide it! There must be some cruel irony at work here. All his life he had chafed under his father’s control, and now when he was ready to accept it, it was withheld.
“But I don’t know what path I want to take. That’s the problem.”
“You must look within yourself. The answers will be there.” And Kolopak walked away.
Chakotay knew what he meant. He was suggesting Chakotay embark on a vision quest, abetted by the Akoonah, technology that had been developed to help one explore one’s own unconscious. What his ancestors had achieved through fasting and smoking potent hallucinogens, his people today could accomplish safely, through a neuroelectric stimulator.
Chakotay had always resisted the vision quest, for it was part of a tradition that he eschewed. But today, in the throes of his ambivalence, it sounded almost tempting. In a moment’s decision, he went to the small chamber of the house, the habak, which was dedicated to inner exploration.
His father had brought him into that room many times, pointing out artifacts, explaining rituals. Chakotay, of course, had turned a deaf ear to all of it. Would he even remember, now, what to do?
His eye traveled the walls of the room, adorned with ancient writings. He knew that some of them described the creation myth, the story of the First Father and his raising of the sky. For the first time, he actually looked at the symbols, to see if he could decipher what he knew of the story.
It was all gibberish to him.
Ancient artifacts were everywhere—carvings and figurines, fetishes and amulets. And, in the center of the room, a small bundle that held his father’s most precious spiritual talismans. Chakotay sat and unwrapped the leather hide, revealing several decorated stones, an oddly shaped bone, a disk of feathers.
And the Akoonah.
The Akoonah was a flat piece of technology upon which Chakotay must lay his palm. He knew he was supposed to chant a ritual prayer, but from what he understood, that was just for ritual’s sake. The journey inward was actually induced by the Akoonah, which stimulated the neurons of the hypothalamus, producing a lucid REM state.
Ignoring the artifacts in the bundle as well as the ritual prayer, Chakotay placed one hand on the Akoonah and focused his eyes on the row of fetishes in front of him. At first he felt nothing, but then a faint tingling sensation drifted through his hand, and then through his whole body. He began to feel a contentedness, a sense of well-being that was unfamiliar. He liked this blissful sensation, and hoped it would continue. His mind relaxed, and he felt himself entering willingly into a euphoria.
Gradually, he became aware that his surroundings were changing. The row of fetishes were becoming formless, vague. Their colors