by Rob Roth
“Alright, Van Dyne. Let’s see if all this hard work and effort paid off. Go ahead and initiate the beamline.”
Dr. Williamson flipped the switch to turn on the beamline, then rotated the control for the exotic containment field intensity. Once again the dim, dark portal began to form, but this time things were sharper and clearer than before. The same tall, handsome and dignified figure in a shimmering gold robe could be seen facing them. This time he was smiling right at them, hands open in a gesture of peace.
"The field is holding steady…" said Williamson. "The Schrödinger areas seem to have achieved equilibrium…"
Suddenly there was a bright flash, and the portal vanished. But right where the portal had been an instant ago stood the tall friendly stranger in person.
“Greetings my friends! I've been watching your progress and am so thrilled you achieved this technical accomplishment. Well done! Have no fear, I come in peace and wish to reward your world by sharing my knowledge and wisdom with you.”
The three who had been standing there alone just a few seconds ago, were stunned. General Heissman was the first to regain composure, and said, “Who are you, and how did you get here?”
“You may call me Salem, which means peace in one of your many languages. As to how I got here, it should be obvious. You opened up a door into our world. I felt like an invitation was being given, so I simply accepted it.”
“We created the portal so we could traverse to your world…” stammered Van Dyne. "…we had not intended it for others to come into ours."
“I'm afraid that would not have been possible. You would not have survived in our world. Therefore, I thought it would be more prudent if I came here.”
“Do you mind explaining how it is that we cannot survive there, but you can come here?” asked Van Dyne somewhat dubious.
“Not at all,” said Salem. “Although it might not make sense to you. Your world and people consist of two inherent natures, whereas ours only has one. I can come here because my one nature finds a compatible nature here in which to reside. However, your two natures cannot survive as they would only find a place for one nature in my world. Your consciousness would be torn apart. You see, your world contains a flaw, whereas we are an older, more advanced world, and have been able to evolve the weaker flawed nature out. I have come to help your world advance technically in many ways, which will also help eliminate the weaker nature and develop and advance you into the more superior race you were meant to be.”
General Heissman's interest was immediately raised when Salem mentioned technical advancement. This is what Heissman had dreamed for, and it sounded like this Salem character could perhaps deliver it to him. But Heissman needed proof.
“How do we know what you are telling us is true? Or that you have technology beyond what we ourselves already have? After all, we built the gateway, not you.”
“We have visited your world before, so this is not new to us,” said Salem. “Also, as you saw, we know how to use the gateway, and are able to do so, whereas you cannot.” Then, Salem took out an orange sphere from his robe and squeezed it in his hand, and he simply vanished. “Tell me,” said the now invisible Salem, “is the ability to become invisible a technology you possess? Is it something for which you would find useful? It’s one of many we possess.”
Heissman could hardly contain himself thinking how this would absolutely revolutionize their ability to spy on or surprise their enemies.
“Salem, I would like to introduce you to our world leaders,” the general said, which in his mind meant Washington's military leadership. “If you would be so kind as to reappear, I will make immediate arrangements to take you to them.”
“Certainly,” Salem said. “I will be happy to share what I know with your leaders. I just have one small request. I need help locating a certain artifact of mine. Someone named 'Severs' I believe may have it.”
The next morning, Jace decided the best way to ascertain Van Dyne’s whereabouts was to take the direct approach. Well, almost a direct approach. He still had the phone number of Van Dyne’s driver Edward, from his last trip, and since he had formed a relationship with Eddie, he simply gave him a call.
“Hello Eddie, this is Jace Larkin.”
“G’Day Dr. Larkin! It’s so nice to hear from you. Are you back in Melbourne?”
“Yes, and I wanted to surprise Mr. Van Dyne with my visit, to update him on an important assignment I was performing for him. Do you happen to know his whereabouts? Is he at the University today?”
“Yes, he is. I dropped him off in front of the Synchrotron building around 7 am this morning.”
“May I ask, how did Mr. Van Dyne seem to you?”
“Actually, he was very quiet this morning on the drive. Like he had some weighty matters on his mind. Until today, he’s been very upbeat this whole week. I wouldn’t say he was necessarily in a bad mood, though. More like he just needed to figure something out.”
“Thanks, Eddie. As I said, I wanted to surprise him, so I’d appreciate it if you just kept this call between the two of us. Maybe I can help put him in a better mood when I go see him.”
“Sure thing, Dr. Larkin. Will you be staying at the Van Dyne estate while you are here?”
“No, I don’t believe so, Eddie. I have some other business to attend to, so I just grabbed a hotel room. I’m only here for a day or two as it is a short visit.”
“Well, if you need anything, Dr. Larkin, just let me know. I’m sure Mr. Van Dyne would not mind lending you a driver, if you find you have a need for one.”
“Thanks, Eddie. I’ll let you know. G’day.”
After the call, Jace arranged for a taxi to take Elysia and him to Monash University around 11 am, since it was only a 20-minute drive. He had the driver drop them off in front of the Synchrotron building, where they decided to wait outside, hoping that Van Dyne would stop for a lunch break and go out to eat or go back to his office. Sure enough, around 12:30 pm Van Dyne came out of the building.
“Connor! It’s so good to see you here!” called Jace as they approached Van Dyne. “My colleague and I just arrived, and I was getting ready to call you. How fortunate we caught you just as you were leaving the building,” said Jace. “May I introduce Elysia Eldian. She is a… exo-biologist. An expert who studies life on other worlds, and we often collaborate together.”
“Hello Dr. Larkin, it’s good to see you again! Miss Eldian, how lovely! I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Jace, it is extremely fortuitous you are here today. I can’t believe my luck. I really need to talk to you about a pressing matter. Would you and Miss Eldian care to join me in my office?” he said as he led them to his car for the short drive to his building.
Once there he led them through security and down the hall to his office and offered them both a seat. Jace was a little surprised, since Elysia was not cleared for Project Stardust so he assumed Van Dyne wanted to discuss a different matter.
“Dr. Larkin, do you recall our last meeting, when our project was in need of additional exotic matter, and I asked you to locate some for me?”
“Connor, I should caution you that my colleague is not cleared for that project,” Jace said. “Would you prefer I take her to the break room first and let her relax there before we get into these discussions?”
“You said Miss Eldian here, is an exo-biologist. I think we are going to need all the expertise we can get on this problem. As for Project Stardust, I don’t care if she hears about it. I’m not sure where we go from here, and the concerns have gotten much, much bigger than the original goals we set out pursuing. Heissman has moved to gain control, and I fear he plans to use the knowledge to make the U.S. a supreme and unchallenged technical leader. I don’t know how to stop him!”
“What do you mean, Connor? Did you make progress since we last talked? Did you get more blue dust? Were you able to open the portal?” Jace fired off with a great deal of concern in his voice.
“Yes, Yes, and Yes, but it didn
’t work out the way we thought it would.”
“How so? Slow down and bring us up to speed,” Jace said.
“A couple months ago, General Heissman arrived with some blue dust that I later learned he had liberated from Captain Severs. After Dr. Williamson had installed a third exotic matter containment field and we turned on the beamline, the portal became much clearer. In fact, we could very clearly see a person in the portal.”
“What? A person?” asked Jace. “What did the person look like?”
“He was tall, muscular, and handsome. Dressed in some sort of gold shimmery robe. He looked wise and intelligent, and we just had the feeling or impression that he was a concerned fellow desiring to help us. We did not sense anything but kindness and good will coming from him."
Jace didn't know what to think. But when he glanced over at Elysia, she had a concerned look on her face. “What happened next?” Jace asked.
“I foolishly tried to reach out to him… to touch him. The portal resisted like rubber. It was as if it stretched. Williamson said the Schrödinger spaces we're not in quantum equilibrium or something. I pushed harder and it popped. Vanished. Dr. Williamson calculated that one more containment ring was needed — another cache of blue dust — to stabilize the portal.”
“So, did you get it?”
“Heissman said he would get more, and I think he was going to go squeeze Severs to provide some. I don't know if that happened or not, but regardless, Heissman showed up yesterday with more blue dust.”
Van Dyne could see he now had focused attention from Jace and his beautiful looking female companion, Elysia. Good. He needed their help to understand what was happening and what should be done.
“It didn't take Dr. Williamson long to create the fourth containment field,” continued Van Dyne. “He hooked it up and we started the beamline. This time, the portal appeared, and Williamson said we had achieved equilibrium. We had a series of tests we wanted to perform, but before we could even start them, the portal flashed and vanished, and the figure we had seen in the portal had actually transited to our dimension. He was in the room with us!”
“He crossed over? Where is he?” asked Jace.
“This is what has me concerned. The person promised us technical advancements — that he would help improve our world. Heissman immediately took him away and they headed to D.C. Well, not immediately. First this person gave a small demonstration of his technical capabilities by turning himself invisible.”
“What!!?” exclaimed Elysia. “He made himself invisible? How did he do that?”
“Well, he squeezed a little orange sphere and disappeared.”
Jace could see Elysia looked about ready to faint. Being quite concerned he asked, “Are you ok, Elysia?”
But she ignored Jace and was looking directly at Van Dyne. “His name! Did he say his name!?” she all but shouted.
“Why yes, he did. I believe it was 'Salem'.”
Elysia could hardly breathe, let alone speak, but managed to force one word out.
“Malic!"
Van Dyne told Jace and Elysia everything else he could remember about what Salem had told them. Jace then told Van Dyne he and Elysia would give consideration to what they had learned and get back to him. Then they quickly returned to their hotel because Jace had a lot of questions for Elysia.
“Why did you say 'Malic' back in Van Dyne's office?” asked Jace. “The person Van Dyne mentioned was named 'Salem'.”
“No, Jace. Malic was simply mocking everyone, as he does. It sounded like 'Salem' but the name he said was no doubt 'Cilam', which is 'Malic' backwards. He twists the truth. He always has. Usually his ‘truths’ are the exact opposite.”
“Wait a second… the blue dust we retrieved in Greenland was deposited twelve thousand years ago after Malic was defeated.”
“Yes…?” she said questioningly.
“Well, obviously, that Malic can't still be around…” Jace started to say but noticed the confused look on Elysia's face. “… can he?”
“Of course, he is. Eld has not destroyed him yet. Jace, I fear for your world, because I don't know what is to be done now. Malic became invisible by using his Malicon stone — his corrupted Elicon. Don't you see? He has his full powers here. If we were in the Pristine Lands, I could at least challenge him using my Elicon stone, but here I am powerless, as are you, because the Elicon is pristine and this world is tainted. That's why the Malicon can function here whereas Elicons cannot. How do we stop someone with this kind of power?”
“Elysia, I am not giving up! There must be some way to stop him. From what you said, Eld sent more than one Elicon stone to our world. Maybe someone is out there who can challenge Malic.”
“I don't know, Jace. I hope for all our sakes, you are right.”
“What about what Malic said, about the two natures. Was that the truth or a lie?” asked Jace.
“Like everything Malic says, there is some truth mixed in with his lies. Yes, you have two natures competing — the original given by Eld and now the one tainted by corruption. And I believe Malic is right that he could come here but they could not go there because their two natures could not survive in a world of just one nature. But it is because of his Malicon stone he could cross over and not perish, not his corrupted nature. Without it he would be just as limited trying to move a single nature into a world with two natures.
"And you could cross over to mine and me to yours as well, but only because of our Elicon stones. The real lie is that he wishes to improve your world. He wishes to destroy the part of Eld in you completely and leave only the corrupted part. He means to rule your world, make no mistake, and in the process he will corrupt your world and your people. He will destroy everything that is good.”
“Wait a minute,” asked Jace. “How can their spaceship come here through the Barringer hole? The Maliconi have one nature and our world has two. Shouldn’t that prevent them?”
“That is interesting...” said Elysia thoughtfully. “They must have some sort of protective shield around their ship that keeps them safe. Perhaps powered by the blue dust. But that means they cannot leave their ship, or they would be destroyed. Although, they could still inflict a lot of damage on your world from inside their ships.”
“Unfortunately, we don't have much to go on,” said Jace, “but we know this — for some reason Malic wants that artifact Severs has. Any ideas why?”
“No. But if Malic wants it, I know we absolutely must keep it from him at all costs.”
FOURTEEN
“Welcome back to Flagstaff,” greeted Captain Severs as he and Davis met Dooley and Allison in the lobby of the hotel they would all be staying in. “You must be tired after the long flight.”
“It wasn’t too bad,” said Allison. “It gave us some time to sort out some things.”
She didn’t elaborate on the matter, but Dooley knew what she was talking about. He had an equal partnership relationship with Jace, and it worked very well. Jace was the Professor, and Dooley deferred to him on most technical stuff. But when it came to the physical stuff, Jace was more than happy to let Dooley take charge, because that was what Dooley was trained for.
Along comes Allie, and she is just as capable with physical challenges, and is also a take charge person. Dooley wanted to treat her as his ‘little woman’, and Allie would have none of that. Partly his confusion was caused by the ruse she played when they first met, acting all defenseless and needy, which set Dooley up with the wrong impression of her. Boy, I sure misread that! he thought to himself, even though he had known she was military. But she was a regular kick-ass, take no prisoners type of person, and he was slowly beginning to realize that. So, they reached an agreement to ease up on the boyfriend-girlfriend stuff for a while since, frankly, neither one seemed too good at it. Instead they decided to act like equal partners and see how that worked out.
“Yeah, we worked on some things,” said Dooley.
Not wanting to belabor the obvious tension, S
evers moved onto the points at hand. “I got a message from Jace earlier today, asking that we get together in one of our rooms, now that you two have arrived, because he wants to let us know what happened in Melbourne with Van Dyne. Once you both have checked into your rooms, please come over to my room and we will make the call to Jace.”
After they had gathered in Captain Severs room, they called Jace and Elysia, and for the next ten minutes, Jace updated the other four on everything that had transpired, without any interruption, other than Elysia clarifying some points about Malic.
“So that’s it. Any questions or comments?” prompted Jace.
There was dead silence in the room for about ten seconds, while they tried to absorb all they had just heard. To try to break the somber mood, Dooley finally spoke up.
“So, Captain, this Malic guy apparently knows you by name. Must be nice to be intergalactically famous.”
Pointedly ignoring him, Severs said, “Why would this Malic want the artifact? I thought it was a communications device. Well, maybe he plans to use it to communicate with the spaceship," he said, answering his own question.
“You may be right,” said Allison. “In which case, disruption of communications is one of the first tactics to employ in battle. We need to make sure Malic does not get his hands on it. Apparently he doesn’t know where it is, or he wouldn’t have mentioned your name as the one having it.”
“Also, Captain Severs’ idea of getting access to one of the LINAC systems fits right in,” Davis added. “We could use the LINAC to destroy the spaceship. Without a ship, and no communications, we would surely cripple Malic, making it difficult for him to achieve his goals.”
“I don’t know...” said Elysia thoughtfully. “Malic is extremely powerful just on his own, since he has use of the Malicon stone. If Heissman is successful in introducing Malic to your military leaders, and they buy into his scheme to ‘improve humanity’, he wouldn’t need a spaceship to accomplish his goals. Something just doesn’t sound quite right to me.”