by Joe Haldeman
2. Vertebrates
All vertebrates give some response; with few exceptions, the strength and complexity of the response is a direct function of brain size. Best results, predictably, came from experiments with simians and cetaceans.
(One researcher, Robert Graham of Charleville, claimed to have established communication on a verbal, conversational level with a pair of dolphins. His investigations have recently been discredited, as detailed in Section H.)
Section I following deals with the well-known perception and learning experiments conducted by Theodore Staupe of Colorado on chimpanzees and great apes. Section II details related work done with cetaceans by this author.
The response of other mammals is interesting but wildly variable, depending on the tester and the individual animal. Domesticated animals give the most complex responses; wild ones react mainly with fear. Section III following is a tabular assessment of all vertebrate data.
3. The L’vrai
A total of eleven people have attempted bridge rapport with the L’vrai. Four recorded no meaningful responses, but six suffered (apparently instantaneous) cardiac arrest. One died; the other five are now confined to mental institutions, mute and apparently oblivious to external stimuli. Autopsy revealed only a slight lesion on the rhinencephalon, which might have predated rapport.
Of course there is one individual, Jacque Lefavre, who has repeatedly communicated with the L’vrai via bridge rapport. His highly subjective account of the experience is appended in Section VI following, through the courtesy of his publishers.
4. Apologia
Although this summary is profusely decorated with charts, graphs, statistics, and so forth, readers are warned to interpret our results with the skepticism they deserve. The data herein are for the most part subjective and nonrepeatable; where the data are quantified, the numbers are highly suspect. The summary is prepared in the spirit of a “state of the art” report, primarily to indicate directions for further research.
Hugo Van der Walls, Ph.D.
14 July 2062
AED Charleville
Contents:
I. The Groombridge Effect in Simians: Some Preliminary Observations (Staupe, Theodore; AED Colorado Springs).
II. Bridge Rapport Between Humans and Cetaceans (Van der Walls, Hugo, and staff; AED Charlevile).
III. A Statistical Survey of the Groombridge Effect (Van der Walls, Hugo, and staff; AED Charleville).
IV. Toward a Psychic Taxonomy (Van der Walls, Hugo; AED Colorado Springs).
V. Human/L’vrai Contact: Three Views (Jameson, Philip; Lefavre, Jacque; Chandler, Lewis; AED Colorado Springs).
VI. Mindbridge (Lefavre, Jacque; copyright © St. Martin’s TFX, 2060).
51 - Crystal Ball II
By 2090 people were getting nervous. Nobody but Jacque Lefavre had been able to maintain bridge rapport with the L’vrai, and Jacque was 75 years old. He probably had another quarter-century, but then what?
The L’vrai suggested a way that people could be tested for bridge potential without being turned into vegetables if they were unsuitable.
First, Lefavre was subjected to an exhaustive battery of psychological tests, that reduced his psyche to a computer full of numbers. People who roughly matched his profile were given the same battery of tests. The ones who came closest to “being” Lefavre were given a final test: sent to a remote corner of Groombridge, where the L’vrai waited. Isolated from the psychic pollution that random human sensibilities caused, the L’vrai didn’t have to touch a candidate to tell whether he or she were suitable.
Candidate after candidate was rejected. Perhaps Jacque was unique. If so, humanity would be in a sorry state when he died-at the mercy of a creature whose nature was still a mystery, with whom communication was impossible. The L’vrai refused to read, write, or speak, claiming that expressing truth was impossible through the muddy filter of human language.
Jacque was 105, still hale, when his successor was found. Then two more, over the next few years.
A century later, there were several hundred who could communicate with the L’vrai; in a thousand years, every human could.
The L’vrai said it had not influenced human evolution directly; indeed, humans hadn’t really changed in any basic way. They had only begun to see in their own nature the literal embodiment of e pluribus unum that described the L’vrai.
It withdrew its fleet from Sirius and allowed humankind the stars.
52 - Autobiography 2149
(From Peacemaker: The Diaries of Jacque Lefavre, copyright © St. Martin’s TFX 2151:)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Jacque Lefavre never made another entry in his diary after his beloved Carol died in 2112. But he continued service to humanity as emissary/translator to the L’vrai for another thirty years, until failing health forced him to retire.
The “ecstasy death” associated with primary contact in the Groombridge Effect had long been well-established. Lefavre desired it, and the AED was honored to comply.
They brought an untouched bridge to his bedside in upstate New York and, for his secondary contact, jumped in his great-granddaughter Tania Celarion. Of the twenty-eight great-grandchildren descended from the two children he and Carol had had, Tania was the one with the greatest Rhine potential, 458.
No meaningful number could be ascribed to Lefavre’s potential, of course. Eighty years of association with the L’vrai had made him by far more sensitive than any other human being. He knew, therefore, that he wouldn’t live long after he had touched the bridge.
In fact he lasted less than twenty seconds. But his great-granddaughter revealed in great detail, under contact hypnosis, what went through his mind in that short time.
Although this transcript has been reprinted often, it does seem a fitting way to end this collection.
I came in and sat down by his bed. He looked so old, I’d never seen anybody looked so old. I thought he was asleep but he wasn’t. He just had trouble opening his eyes all the way. He smiled at me and said “Tania, you make me wish I was a century younger,” but the nurses told me he says that to any woman not in a wheelchair. And maybe he means it. He seems so good and pure, it’s the Power he got from the Creepies, the L’vrai. It made him a little like a Creepy himself. He asked me how my mother was and all that relative drik, but I could see he couldn’t keep his eyes off my box. The box I had the Groombridge Creepy in. Finally he asked me if we otta go ahead and do it, and I had to ask him did he really know he was going to die if he did? He said, “Child, I died thirty-seven years ago, and some months. Once I could tell you to the day, she was that much.” Well, the nurses had warned me about that, too; all he ever talks about is my great-grandmother. Talked. Anyhow, he warned me not to touch the thing first, just open the box and let him touch it, and then get right in there with him because he didn’t know how long it’d last.
Do you have that recorder on? Now most of this is what he said, but some of it’s me bouncing off him. It’s so important. You just listen and you can tell.
There you are child. O your mind is so clean so new, may you never grow old and crowded. This is fun, I hope it doesn’t give me a goddamn stroke; I’ve been inside woman’s body Carol’s, but never a little girl, so strange to feel the bones wanting to grow. You were little once too it’s not so much fun when you’re caught I know child in it, nothing ever fits once you get used to it I know I had a daughter why didn’t you ever bridge her then. Well it seemed like a sexual thing and I guess it is but I don’t really know what you’re talking about but I don’t feel shame, just that glow-say don’t call me Jacque I’m as old as a goddamn planet call me Pop or Grandpop or I didn’t call you Jacque or anything even, hey, you can’t lie in bridge-there you did it again I DIDN’T CALL YOU NOTHING Jacque. No? . . . . . . I’m just a senile old fool Jacque I know that sound anywhere you have a special voice in bridge O shit it’s sad to Jacque get so old you start Jacque kidding yourself Grandpop I hear it too don’t humor me child angel bitch Jacque Jacqu
e O God could they be right
Now I know that I’m just a little child and he was just an old man so nobody’s gonna believe either of us. But I was there and I’ll swear on anything you want that the voice was there, a woman’s voice, soft, and if he said it was my great-grandmother then it was. Now I know you said that nobody else ever heard nothing like that but I don’t care, I heard it, and if you don’t want to believe me you can just go do yourself. Mom will believe me.
53 - For They Shall Be Called the Children of God
In 2281 there was founded a planet (and splinter sect of Catholicism) named Nuovo Vaticano. They wanted to start their hagiographic calendar over clean: keeping such old saints as still had appeal, naming new ones as they saw fit.
The planet had to have a patron saint, and of course they didn’t want it to be one of the old ones. Someone suggested Jacque Lefavre. All anybody knew was that he’d done good works in connection with the New Saviors, and that on his deathbed he’d offered some highly disputed proof of an afterlife.
Their small, practical library didn’t have a copy of peacemaker, so they had one sent on the next jump.
After reading the book thoroughly they decided Lefavre would be a bad example for their children.