"It has taken you seventeen incarnations to arrive at
this truth?" said Yama. "I can see then why you are
still doing time as an ape."
"Not so," said the ape, whose name was Tak. "My
fall, while less spectacular than your own, neverthe-
less involved elements of personal malice on the part
ofч"
"Enough!" said Yama, turning his back to him.
Tak realized then that he might have touched upon a
sore spot. In an attempt to find another subject for
conversation, he crossed to the window, leapt onto its
wide sill and stared upward.
"There is a break in (he cloud cover, to the west," he
said.
Yama approached, followed the direction of his
gaze, frowned, and nodded.
"Aye," he said. "Stay where you are and advise me."
He moved to a bank of controls.
Overhead, the lotus halted in its turning, then faced
the patch of bare sky.
"Very good," he said. "We're getting something."
His hand moved across a separate control panel,
throwing a series of switches and adjusting two dials.
Below them, in the cavernous cellars of the monas-
tery, the signal was received and other preparations
were begun: the host was made ready.
"The clouds are coming together again!" cried Tak.
"No matter, now," said the other. "We've hooked
our fish. Out of Nirvana and into the lotus, he comes."
There was more thunder, and the rain came down
with a sound like hail upon the lotus. Snakes of blue
lightning coiled, hissing, about the mountaintops.
Yama sealed a final circuit.
