Pathways - Jeri Taylor [23]
“Were you indulged a great deal as a child? You behave very much like someone used to getting his own way.”
Chakotay felt a chill as he heard Sveta’s words repeated to him. It was hard to remember that everything that was happening was in his own mind, that all the memory and experience of his life was available to anyone or anything that might inhabit this strange landscape.
“Is that a clue?” he asked sincerely. “Are you saying I should go back to the Academy, where Sveta is?”
“I’m not saying anything. All of this is coming from you.”
“But I don’t know what to do. I need an answer.”
“It’s an answer you have to provide yourself.”
“Then what’s the point of coming here?”
“Good question. Maybe it’s to confront something you can’t confront in the external world. Out there you can point the finger at others, blame them for not making things easy for you. In here it’s a little harder. There’s only you.”
Chakotay contemplated this. This annoying snake was certainly frustrating, but he would feel awfully foolish suggesting to anyone—including himself—that an imaginary snake had let him down by refusing to make his decision for him.
“I’ve always been a contrary,” he said. “If I’m here, I want to be there. If I’m there, I want to be here. I don’t know what to do about that.”
“Then I guess you’ll stay that way.” The snake’s muscles gulped once more, and the lump of fish moved slightly farther along its body.
“I’d like to change that. I just don’t know how.”
“Then I guess you won’t be able to.” Another gulp.
“I’m trying to work this out,” said Chakotay irritably, “and I thought you were supposed to give me some help. ‘Spirit guide’ does imply guidance, after all.”
“I’m hurt. You’re accusing me of not doing my job.”
“Exactly. You’re not guiding me.”
The snake lifted its head slightly and extended its forked tongue once more. “People used to think my tongue was the poisonous part,” it said. “It’s actually my sensing organ. I sense a big hulking presence in front of me, and I sense that it’s a hopeless mass of confusion. I sense it would do anything other than make a decision, including indulging in a perfectly pointless argument with a figment of its own imagination. I see little hope for this presence. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to digest my meal.”
And the snake coiled itself again, lowering its head to rest, preparing to spend the next several days in a torpor, consuming its recent meal.
Chakotay sat down on the ground and stared at it. Somewhere in what it had said there must be an answer, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. If this was all the help one got from a vision quest, he failed to see why it was so important to his people. Did they all go through these exercises in frustration and then report to the world that it had been a satisfying, productive experience? Was it all a sham, a ritual perpetuated for its own sake—as he suspected most of their rituals were—and lacking any intrinsic value?
He stood up in the still silent clearing. “All right, I’m ready to go now,” he announced.
Nothing happened. He remained in the clearing, the water pool trickling softly, the snake coiled and still. This was bothersome, but not really an impediment. This was his clearing; he’d discovered it and he knew the way out. He turned to follow the path he’d worn between the ferns over the years.
There was no path and there were no ferns. The shape of the clearing had changed subtly, and seemed more thickly thronged with underbrush. He tried to force his way through, but the brambles