Richard Wilson

“ I told him what they said about yage, that some South American croaker had isolated from it a fix he called telepathine. How it was supposed to be some kind of miracle dope that you could take when you wanted it without actually needing it, and it would open up the world for you so you'd be close, really close, to others like you. So your mind would be their mind. A union more terrific than any other kind—as far beyond even the ideal sexual climax, for instance, as sex is beyond a bow or a handshake. ”

“ But apparently uru was merely the key that opened the door to the real world for which it was named, a finite and beautiful planet spinning in a vastly distant galaxy at the other side of the spacial barrier. A world that Earthmen would never reach in this lifetime without the invitation and assistance of a native of that world who had developed mental powers beyond our comprehension.
And Jones, not only a native but apparently a noble of Uru, was extending that invitation to me.
Me, a dope addict, temporarily between kicks. Me, a dreg of humanity. ”

“ I also practiced the Sport of Uru, in which Jones was my teacher. I called him Joro now; that was his real name, and my name had become Boru.
As Boru I was something of a celebrity in my adopted world. When I went to the great gamesward, for the Sport, they cheered and often crowded around to press gifts on me.
Oh, I was well regarded. I had been assimilated. I, Boru. Boru the Fighting Man.
Twice I had engaged in hand-to-hand combat, as Joro's Fighting Man, in the Annual Sport—the wars between the cities. Twice I had fought, and now one contest remained. ”

“ About the Earth being a thousand Earths—a million—two billion—meaning a different thing to every individual whose home it was. How Jones, with his uru drug, roaming the underworld of one city, had naturally seen only the dregs of its society—the users and pushers, the grifters and dreamers, the seekers after the big deal, the short cut, the unearned reward, the big fix. ”

“ An addict would give himself a fix of Henry, sliding the needle into the vein, and later, as his tension relaxed, he'd say to his connection, "I hear yage is the real kick—they tell me that compared to yage, heroin is the least." And the connection would say, "That's what they tell me, but I never seen any of it myself. They have it in the Amazon or someplace, I hear."
It's always hearsay. But after a while you hear so much about it that you believe it's got to be around somewhere, so you keep asking. I asked Jones. ”

“ The voice was that of a mind, reaching out through vastness and into my own thoughts.
"You are not alone," the mind-voice said, and it was what I had been waiting to hear. "You are one with all good things. The door you have been seeking is open. You have only to walk through." ”

“ So I went into the crazy old dream—the feeling that there's something better someplace, something you can take or leave alone, that doesn't leave you with that wrung-out, hopeless horror of junk sickness when you can't get the stuff. ”

“ You are no longer Boru the Fighting Man. You can never achieve the nobility that your prowess could have brought you. Now you are Barry the Alien, and there is no place in our world for you."
"Then I'm fired?" I asked.
"A man in disgrace should be less facetious. There should be a penalty for what you have done, but it was unprecedented. There is only one thing to do. You must be deported."
"To Earth?" All at once this was what I wanted.
"Yes," he said. "To the ugly planet from which you came. It is no more than you deserve. ”

“ The beauty of a thing can't be recreated in its absence. Only the memory of it lingers. But the memory of an exalted experience has a beauty of its own.
After a while I came back. Back to my gross self lying on the bed, the jade-green cigaret holder in my fingers, a long ash on the end of the cigaret. So I had been away only a minute or two in our time. It had seemed hours in his.
Gradually the sparkling worlds reverted to patches of sunlight and the dust-cloud to tobacco smoke.
Jones stood near the bed. Gently he took the holder from my fingers and snuffed out the cigaret in the ashtray. ”

“ Man could never live there, Jones showed me, because of poisonous atmosphere, or unstable boiling land, or forbidding ice-locked vastness, or impenetrable fog. Only Uru, of the five, had evolved in a way harmonious to man. ”

“ He took a cigaret holder out of his pocket. It was green, like jade, and carved around its fat middle was a design of some kind. I couldn't make it out, even when I held it in my hand.
Jones put a cigaret in the holder. It looked like an ordinary king-size smoke and I told him so.
"That is correct," he said. "It is not the cigaret that provides the effect, but the uru in the holder. The smoke travels over the uru and activates it. Enough of it is absorbed by the warm smoke for the desired result. Do not inhale too deeply the first time." ”

“ I'm off the stuff, but I take a sort of philosophical interest in it, you might say."
"I could not sell you any at the moment, in any case," Jones said. "I do not make a practice of carrying it on my person."
"Of course not. But what is it? Rollo tells me it's not the usual junk. I wondered if maybe it was yage."
Yage was something you kept hearing about but never saw yourself. It was always somebody who knew somebody else who'd tried it. Yage was the junkie's dream. You never caught up with it, but you heard hints in conversation. ”

“ I told him about the other addicts—how they feel this kinship that's not like any other relationship anywhere—how you have that exalted feeling of mingled hope and despair when another junkie is coming with a fix for you—and how by just drifting around in a strange city you find yourself drawn to the right district to score the stuff. ”

“ Jones smiled and shook hands with me. Then he excused himself and went out into the hall. So far so good. No smart pusher keeps the stuff in his room. Possession carries a stiff rap.
I had my works with me—needle and eye-dropper—but Jones told me I wouldn't need it. I was surprised. If his place wasn't a shooting gallery, what was it? A weed joint? Weed was no good—that was fag stuff. Marijuana, bennies, goof balls, nembies—that stuff was nowhere for a cat who'd been mainlining it for a decade. I told that to Jones. ”

“ Now what about that stuff of yours—what do you call it again?"
"Uru," he said. "It is what yage is said to be, but is not. You would like it. But you tell me you are 'off the stuff'."
"Off the old stuff. It's no good and I've licked it. Off with the old," I said, beginning to feel a little high already, "and on with the new. Uru, eh?"
This might be it. The most. The big fix. I had to have it.
"You shall try it," Jones said. "You shall judge for yourself. Then if you want more I will provide it for you. There will be no charge."
Right away I got suspicious. Nobody gives anything away. ”

“ Since uru was a drug maybe it was only natural that Jones' first contact would be with users of narcotics. The natives an explorer first meets in a new land are not necessarily people of the highest class. He meets the adventurers, the ones with spirit enough to canoe out to meet his ship. ”

“ I said, doing fancy footwork and throwing punches at the air. "And one of us is going to be carried out."
"I was looking for yage on South State Street." He weaved and shadow-boxed, not touching me.
"And they gave you uru. The big fix. We're fixed, all right."
"It's the least, Dad," he said. "Believe me."
There was a voice inside my skull. "Boru!" it said. It was Joro's, or Jones's.
"The Man is complaining," I said to Chicago. "The Man named Jones, an uru pusher. Thinks we're not giving the customers their money's worth." ”

“ But that was to be expected; if you were a pusher you had to keep on the move. After a while a landlady got suspicious about all the queer characters visiting this one guy and the next step was the cops.
Jones had called me the day after our talk in the cafeteria, setting up a meet for that afternoon. I'd had a dream about uru, a wild and wonderful dream that made it impossible for me not to go. I'm a hunch-player, anyway. ”

“ Jones might figure I'd like it so much I'd have to have more and then I'd pay and pay. But on the other hand maybe he figured wrong. Nothing is habit-forming once. I didn't know anything about this uru, but I knew all there was to know about everything else. ”