by James Barney
“Which was where?”
“That he didn’t say.”
Of course not. Ana shook her head slowly. “And all of this was according to some German translation of the book of Jasher that he said he’d seen?”
Reynolds nodded.
Ana felt as if her head was going to explode. She needed to sit down and sort through all this information and figure out what—if anything—was actually meaningful. “Did Dr. Holzberg say where he got access to this German book of Jasher?”
Reynolds gave her a curious look before answering. “Well . . . I presume from the people he was working for during the war. The Nazis.”
Something suddenly clicked in Ana’s mind. She knew that Dr. Holzberg had been forced by the Nazis to work on scientific research projects during the war. But now something about where he’d worked suddenly made sense.
“Oh, and there’s one more thing,” Reynolds added.
“Hmm?”
“Remember I said there was a second mention of the book of Jasher in the Old Testament?”
“Uh-huh. It’s in the book of Samuel, right?”
“Right. In the second book of Samuel.” He quickly flipped through his Bible until he reached chapter one, verse eighteen. “Here, David is mourning the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. And the Bible says, ‘He bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow: behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.’ ”
“Okay . . .”
“Well, it turns out there is a tremendous dispute about what the word ‘bow’ means in this passage. The Hebrew word is Qaset, which can mean ‘bow’ like a weapon or ‘bow’ like bending. The context of this particular phrase is very odd, though. And that has led scholars to interpret it very differently over the years. Some have interpreted it to mean the ‘song of the bow,’ since David is performing a lamentation, which would traditionally include poetry or songs. Others have interpreted it to mean the ‘use of the bow,’ as in the use of a bow and arrow.”
“So which is it?”
“Well, in fact, the actual Hebrew text doesn’t say ‘song of’ or ‘use of.’ It literally says ‘teach the children of Judah the bow, which is written in the book of Jasher.’ ”
“Okay . . .”
“According to Franz Holzberg, ‘the bow’ was actually the name of a technique—a military tactic, if you will—that was described in the book of Jasher. So, in this passage in second Samuel, what David is actually instructing the Israelites to do is teach each subsequent generation the bow technique, as described in the book of Jasher.”
“And what technique would that be?”
Reynolds cleared his throat and removed his glasses. “According to Franz, the bow was a technique for bending . . . time.”
27
ROME, ITALY
The house lights slowly dimmed in the Enrico Fermi Lecture Hall at the Sapienza University of Rome, and the audience broke into thunderous applause. The event’s keynote speaker approached the lectern slowly, with the help of a cane. When he finally reached the lectern, he smiled and nodded appreciatively at the audience, waiting patiently for the applause to die down. Finally, the lecture hall fell silent, and a single bright spotlight now illuminated the man behind the podium, Dr. Benjamin Fulcher.
Fulcher was one of the most famous physicists in the world. He was best known for his theoretical work on quantum entanglement, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975. He had completed most of that groundbreaking research while in residence at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton from 1957 to 1973. After that, he held a tenured chair at Cambridge University for several years until leaving England altogether in the early 1980s to become the general director of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), a post he’d held until just about six months ago, when he abruptly left for unknown reasons.
“Friends and colleagues,” said Dr. Fulcher in a crisp British accent and a voice that was nuanced and mellowed with age. “Thank you for giving me this great honor of addressing such a distinguished gathering of scholars and scientists. I am proud to call to order the forty-seventh annual meeting of the International Society of Theoretical Physicists and Chemists.”
At that, the audience erupted in applause, which continued for nearly half a minute, until Fulcher finally signaled for it to subside.
“It is wonderful to be part of this important international symposium, where we will once again explore the outer reaches of physics, expand the boundaries of mankind’s knowledge and understanding of the physical universe . . . and dream.” He paused for effect after putting heavy emphasis on the word “dream.” “Yes, my friends. Dream. For that is what we theoretical physicists and chemists do, is it not? We seek to understand the mysteries of the universe by first dreaming of how things might work . . . if only light had mass, or particles traveled in waves, or time and space were relative, or what have you. The dream, you see, is the spark that leads to the theory that leads to the model that, if you’re lucky, leads to the truth. And while some of you may call this process theorizing or hypothesizing, I prefer to call it what it is . . . dreaming.”
The audience was suddenly abuzz with quiet whispers. Fulcher waited patiently for this activity to run its course. And this was precisely why he had been chosen as this year’s keynote speaker. Aside from being a Nobel laureate and the former director general of CERN, Benjamin Fulcher was also a consummate showman. Always a bit offbeat, always provocative, always entertaining, Fulcher had a reputation for elevating physics to the level of religion. He spoke like a televangelist and, for an hour or so, could make even the most introverted physicist feel like a god. And they loved him for it.
“Today, I would like to talk about gravity. A simple concept, I know. Especially for such an impressive gathering of scientific minds like yours.” He shrugged impishly. “Just gravity. That humble, predictable phenomenon that mankind has known about since the first caveman dropped a rock on his foot. That elementary concept that our forefather Sir Isaac Newton pondered more than three centuries ago.” Fulcher paused and shielded his eyes from the glare of the spotlight so he could observe the reaction of his audience. As he expected, they were hanging on his every word.
“Of course, we all know that gravity is anything but simple. Indeed, with the thousands of years of collective knowledge in this room, and with lifetimes of work by giants such as Newton, Einstein, and Holzberg, we still cannot answer the most fundamental question about gravity. Namely, what is it?”
As Fulcher expected, the crowed suddenly buzzed at this provocative statement. Many in the audience apparently believed that they did know the answer to that question. But Fulcher knew otherwise.
“Of course, we can measure gravity,” he said, quieting the crowd down. “Yes, Newton deduced long ago that two objects in space will attract each other with a force proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them. That was the law, so to speak . . . until Einstein taught us that it wasn’t. Einstein taught us that matter, energy, space, and time are all interrelated. That matter warps the fabric of space-time, like a bowling ball resting on a soft mattress, which then causes other objects around it to move in curved paths instead of straight lines. This, as you know, is a central tenant of Einstein’s theory of general relatively: that gravity is the result of a disruption in the continuum of space-time.”
Fulcher noted that his audience was no longer murmuring and whispering. He had them.
“But of course general relativity has its faults, doesn’t it?” Fulcher again blocked the spotlight with his hand and saw that many heads in the audience were nodding in agreement. “For one thing, it doesn’t jibe well with quantum mechanics. Things that happen on a very small scale, such as inside an atom, don’t seem to obey general relativity. And general relativity also doesn’t cooperate very well with the standard model of the cosmos, which predicts that only five percent of the universe is actually made up of the type of matter contemplated by
Einstein—that is, atoms and molecules and subatomic particles. The rest of the universe is apparently made of something else, some mysterious dark matter that finds no place in Newtonian physics, or, for that matter, in Einstein’s model. So, for the past thirty years, we have struggled to harmonize Einstein’s theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics and with what we can readily observe with our telescopes and modern instrumentation. The result has been . . . well, a stunning failure.”
There were some rumblings in the audience following that provocative comment.
“Yes, we have string theory,” Fulcher continued, raising his voice over the crowd noise. “Which models our universe as a four-dimensional membrane in an eleven-dimensional manifold.”
More rumblings.
“We have Horava gravity, shifting gravity, supergravity, M-theory, and many, many variations on string theory. And yes, some of these theories do a good job of harmonizing general relativity and quantum theory, and I’m not here to discuss which of these theories does a better job than the others. After all, I wouldn’t want to start a riot.”
There was a smattering of laughter in the audience.
“My point is,” continued Fulcher, “none of these theories explains why gravity occurs. And none is fully satisfactory as a comprehensive theory of gravity.” He paused to let the audience absorb this point. “Ladies and gentlemen, gravity is still a mystery to us. The year is 2013. Man has walked on the moon. Our spacecraft have touched Mars and Jupiter and Venus. In the past decade alone, we’ve managed to wire nearly the entire human race into a cohesive neural network called the Internet. Yet we still do not know what causes gravity.” He paused for a moment and added with a grin, “I know you smart people don’t like to hear that . . . but it’s true.”
There was some laughter in the audience. Others in the audience, however, were shifting in their seats, gesticulating emphatically as they exchanged quiet commentary with their neighbors. Fulcher watched this activity with a wry smile. He’d hit a nerve, and he knew it.
“Now,” said Fulcher, once again taking control of the room. “Allow me to offer my own personal perspective on what gravity is.” He paused and cleared his throat. “First, I think it’s safe to say that gravity is a force. And, since it remains a mystery to this day, I think it’s fair to call it a mysterious force.”
A few chuckles could be heard in the audience.
“A mysterious force that pervades the universe, that imbues every particle in the cosmos with a common purpose. A common code of conduct, if you will. So that every physical thing in the universe, even things that suddenly spring into existence from another form—like gases and minerals in the stars or life here on earth—is automatically and indelibly tasked with the same common instruction: to attract. Well, I don’t know about you . . . but that sounds to me like something an intelligent creator would do.”
Suddenly, the audience erupted in a variety of ways, ranging from reverent whispers to open laughter to even a few angry and mocking comments shouted toward the stage. Benjamin Fulcher was well known in the physics community as a rare but vocal minority: a deist.
Fulcher raised his voice above the commotion. “To solve gravity . . . that is, to truly put it under the control of man, would be to stare directly into the face of God. And, ladies and gentlemen . . . we are nearly there.” He paused for several seconds, and the crowd eventually quieted down. “Now, we are all familiar with entanglement theory. The idea that two particles that are born in the same quantum event are somehow entangled with each other such that, even if you separate them by a great distance, they can somehow share information instantaneously. As we’ve learned through decades of experimentation, particularly the recent work at CERN, this information appears to travel faster than the speed of light. For instance, if you measure the spin of one of these paired particles, the other paired particle will instantly change its spin in response . . . even if they are separated by many miles.” Fulcher blocked the spotlight and saw many people in the room nodding along.
“Now, this has been proven over and over again in a variety of experiments. Yet it was something that utterly confounded Einstein. As you know, he called this phenomenon ‘spooky action at a distance.’ ‘Spooky’ because it didn’t seem to obey his cardinal rule of relativity, which is that nothing—not even information itself—can travel faster than the speed of light. So, if we are to abide by this speed limit, then we must assume that quantum entanglement, like gravity, involves some sort of warping of space-time. In other words, the information that is being transmitted between these entangled particles only appears to be traveling faster than the speed of light. In reality, there is a time dilation—perhaps an imperceptibly thin tunnel between these two particles—where time runs faster than it does on the outside.”
The audience was now very still and quiet.
“Now, you are probably wondering why I even brought up this issue of quantum entanglement when I’m supposed to be talking about gravity. Well, it’s because I want you to imagine, if you will, that the Big Bang—the birth of our universe—was a single quantum event that caused every particle and packet of energy released in that event to become entangled. And I want you to imagine that this entanglement effect persisted indefinitely, even after the energy and matter from the Big Bang changed form and began creating gases and minerals, suns and moons, comets and planets, and everything we see around us.” He swept his arm dramatically around the room. “Now I want you to imagine that gravity is simply a physical manifestation of this quantum entanglement. That is, every particle in the universe is attracted to every other particle because they were all born in the same quantum event and possess the same lingering effects of entanglement. Now . . .”
Fulcher had been on a roll, but suddenly he stopped talking. He let the silence grow as he looked back and forth across the audience, setting up his next sentence for maximum impact.
“Now,” Fulcher continued, a bit more quietly. “I want you to imagine that there is a material that does not obey gravity. In other words, it floats in air.” Fulcher used his hands to simulate the effect of an object floating above the podium.
There was some murmuring in the crowd.
“Well, if such a material did exist, and you forced it to become entangled with a secondary material, say nickel or iron . . . well, imagine the type of time dilation that would occur. And imagine how much energy would be released as each atom of the secondary material made the transition from the gravity state to the nongravity state.” He stopped for a moment and scanned the audience from left to right. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
Fulcher paused again, noting that the audience was oddly quiet. He shaded his eyes and searched their faces. For the most part, he saw only confusion and bewilderment.
They’re not ready for this, he thought. But they will be . . . soon.
“Just some food for thought,” Fulcher said, shrugging his shoulders. “Something for you to dream about.” He finished his presentation by calling out and thanking some individual members of the society and providing an overview of the plenary sessions and subcommittee meetings that were to follow in the next two days. Then, in conclusion, he thanked the audience and bid them all good night. He stepped away from the podium to a modest round of applause.
As Fulcher made his way backstage, he was immediately met by Eduardo Bruni, president of the Italian chapter of the ISTPC, which was hosting this event.
“How’d I do?” Fulcher asked.
“Oh, that was quite . . . interesting,” said Bruni.
Fulcher was just about to say something when his cell phone rang in the breast pocket of his blazer. “Excuse me,” he said, hobbling away to a quiet corner. Once he was alone, he answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Doctor, it’s me,” said Vladamir Krupnov. “I’ve received word from the team in Severodvinsk that the demonstration is ready to proceed.”
“Excellent,” said Fulcher.
“But unfor
tunately I need to stay here in the United States. There is still some . . . unfinished business.”
Fulcher understood. Malachi was still on the run. “Don’t worry, I can handle the demonstration,” he said. “As long as someone can get me into the shipyard.”
“Misha will escort you,” said Krupnov. “And I’ll arrange to be linked in by video.” He paused for a moment. “You are confident this demonstration will work?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then we will be one step closer to our goal.”
“Indeed,” said Fulcher. “All that is needed now is the material from Thurmond and Malachi’s help with the map. Vlad, he is the key to our plan. We must find him.”
“Don’t worry,” said Krupnov. “I know exactly where he’s going, and we’ll be waiting for him there. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Let’s hope it’s soon.”
28
BEURY MOUNTAIN, WEST VIRGINIA
Mike Califano felt as if he’d been hit on the side of his head with a tire iron. The explosion in the lab had tossed him like a rag doll into a solid wall of jagged shale. He must have blacked out. As he gradually came to, he found himself lying prostrate on the ground, trying to figure out for the better part of a minute who he was, where he was, and what he was doing there. As he slowly worked through these questions, he gradually became aware of a strange dot of light in the distance. What is that? At length, he realized it was his flashlight, on the ground a few yards away.
With a great throbbing pain in his head, Califano rose slowly to his feet. He took stock of his physical condition. Other than the right side of his head, which hurt like hell, everything else seemed intact and reasonably functional. Nothing missing. Nothing broken. But everything sore. With considerable pain, he made his way over to where his flashlight lay and retrieved it from the ground. As he did, he noticed blood on his hand. He reached up and gently touched the right side of his forehead, which was wet. Then he looked down at his hand in the beam of the flashlight. Fresh blood . . . and lots of it.