The Arcturus Man

by John Strauchs

  “You speak Latvian, then?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What did you do after you left MIT? I guess you picked up some advanced degrees?”

  “No, I stopped at the bachelors. Various faculty members in my department farmed me out to different faculty homes until I was nineteen. I lived with Professor Cunningham the longest. After that, I left to be on my own. I was encouraged to go for my doctorate and they even offered to let me jump over the masters, but I didn’t like the regimentation they planned for me.”

  He smiled, but it was weak.

  “That is much too much about me. Let me hear more about you,” said Jared.

  “Compared to you, I am probably the most boring person on this planet. What did you do after you left MIT? You are very interesting, Jared.”

  He frowned slightly as she said, “interesting.” He didn’t want to be interesting. He wanted to be ordinary.

  She was hunched over on the table. Her cleavage was disarming. The contrast between the white robe and her tan was dramatic.

  He went on.

  “I looked older than nineteen so it wasn’t too difficult to sneak into the casinos in Atlantic City from time to time. Playing blackjack was almost like stealing, even when they used several decks. I was pretty good with numbers. A dealer I got to know told me that if I kept winning they would eventually ban me. I could be spotted as either a counter or a cheater. I made it a point after that to keep my winnings in low figures and to move around the different casinos every night. Evidently you aren’t allowed to win in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. They only allow losers to play. She was also my first flirtation. I didn’t know much about women up until then. I think she was about forty. She became a dealer when she couldn’t be a show girl any longer. I named my computer animation after her.”

  “Ginger…?” thought Jenny

  “Anyway, it was a little extra money.”

  “You didn’t try to get a job?”

  “What would anyone allow a nineteen year old to do?” he retorted. “Head up the space program at NASA?”

  “I guess you’re right,” she said. “Boy, I like this Franken wine. It’s strong, isn’t it?”

  “Later, the head of the physics department, Dr. Emerson, introduced me to patents. Now that was interesting. All sorts of companies were willing to pay at lot of money for the various gadgets I had developed. You know, chip designs, software…that sort of thing. The university took a lot of the money for the first few years until I finally realized that I could do it on my own. Now the royalty checks show up in my bank account almost every week.”

  “Now I understand how you could own a place like this,” said Jenny. "That is very impressive. I don't believe I know anyone who invented something."

  "It’s not really that unique. Hedy Lamar held the patent for frequency hopping radio signals, a technology that she and her husband developed during World War II to thwart German submarines that were jamming allied torpedoes. She received a medal in New York not that long ago. Variants of that technology are still in use today in differing applications, such as garage door openers,” said Jared.

  "Who is Hedy Lamar?"

  "She was a movie star in the 40s."

  "Oh."

  He got up and started to clear the table. He looked out of the window across the bay. Someone was watching him but he couldn’t tell from where. He dismissed it from his mind—for the time being at least. It was probably yet another nameless man. He thought it was the same man he sensed at Ashley’s earlier.

  “Let me help you with that,” said Jenny. They piled the dishes into the dish washer. Every time she put a dish in, he would move it to another location. She didn’t say anything about it and eventually let him do them all.

  “How about some blue berries? I have some heavy sweet cream. Coffee?”

  “Sure, that would be great.”

  “Ginger, coffee please. She makes great Colombian.” A coffee maker on the counter suddenly went into action. It ground the beans, filled itself with water, and started to drip minutes later.

  “That one of your gadgets?”

  “No. That’s one of Capresso’s gadgets, “said Jared. “I just added the automatic water fill part.”

  The manufacturer’s name was on the coffee maker. He pointed to it.

  “Sorry. I can sound didactic at times. I don’t mean to be,” he said.

  “Don’t sweat it. It was a dumb question,” she said.

  She carried the desert and coffee to the veranda. She opened the door so they could sit outside, but the temperature had already dropped dramatically. Maine barely has a spring. It could be in the high seventies during the day and drop to the forties at night. She closed the door and they both sat on the sofa--close. As the cushions slowly compressed under their weight, their thighs touched lightly. Jenny didn’t back away. Jared focused on not thinking about what was under her robe.

  “Fireplace!” The fireplace came to life. “Softer!” The lights dimmed.

  “Oh Oh,” she thought.

  They had their deserts and coffee and talked for a while. She liked guys who had their coffee black. It was very macho. She wanted to stay and talk longer. He was a fascinating man, but it was all happening too fast. Jenny stood up.

  “It’s after ten. I’ve had a long day. Can you show me my room?” She normally didn’t drink coffee this late and she was worried whether it would keep her up.

  “Right away.”

  They took their dishes to the dish washer. It turned on by itself as they left the kitchen. Most of the lights in the kitchen went out. The fireplace went out.

  “Ginger will lock all of the doors and windows after she senses that we are asleep. Keep your identity button on you. Intrusion sensors come on throughout the house. If you feel like a glass of milk or something later, be sure you have the button I gave you in your pocket. You won’t have to do anything to turn off the alarms.”

  “Now THAT IS one of your gadgets. Right? This button?”

  “Well. No. It was actually developed for Bill Gates—you know, the Microsoft guy. It wasn’t me who invented it. I did improve on it, however.”

  Jenny decided she had to stop asking that same dumb question. New lights kept coming on as they walked through the house.

  “Music off.”

  They walked up the stairs.

  “Your room is down there and mine is right here. Just say ‘lock it’ when you go inside.”

  “Got it,” she nodded in sort of a head bobbing way. She was uncomfortable and wanted to get to her room.

  “Do you need to borrow pajamas—you know, or like a big shirt?”

  “No thanks,” but she instantly regretted the answer she gave. The implications of her answer were obvious.

  “If you can’t sleep and want to watch TV or a movie, just say “menu.”

  “Got it.”

  “We share the bath so be sure to lock the door.”

  “Got it.”

  She scurried down the hall and went into the bedroom. “Good night, Jared. It was a marvelous evening. I enjoyed the conversation immensely.”

  “I did too, Jenny. Good Night. I’ll show you the boat you are going to use in the morning,” he said.

  She closed the door. He didn’t make a move on her. “A merit badge for Jared,” she thought. It was nice that he didn’t hit on her, but she surprised herself that she felt just a faint touch of disappointment.

  The room was perfect. It was more than perfect. It was obviously decorated for a woman. She opened drawers and closets, searching for women’s clothing left behind, but they were all empty. “I wonder how many women he’s had here,” she thought.

  She couldn’t smell any woman’s perfume, so it couldn’t have been too recent. Jenny didn’t wear perfume very often so it didn’t occur to her to buy any today. Being a biologist, she told friends that she had a primordial obligation to leave her scent. She was a geek with a sense of humor. The joke delighted her enormously
so she used the same line often. She didn’t think she really had a sense of humor so whenever it happened, she was pleased with herself.

  She went to the door and opened it a crack. His door was closed and she couldn’t see a light coming from under the bathroom door. She crept out and quickly ran into the bathroom.

  “Lock it.” It locked.

  She washed her face and brushed her teeth. She gathered up her stuff and put them back in the Wal-Mart bag. She grabbed her clothes. They hadn’t been moved. She put on her robe and tried to open the door. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Damn it. Unlock it.” It unlocked.

  Ginger was silent. “Moody isn’t she,” she thought. She crept out and went back to her room. She felt just a touch of lightheadedness. It was the Franken wine. She was certain of it.

  She dropped her bathrobe on a chair. The bed had a European comforter. It felt like goose down. She slid in. The pillows were like clouds. It was heavenly. The sheets were satin and felt cool to her bare skin. Suddenly, one of the windows opened and the lights dimmed and then were off entirely. She wasn’t used to sleeping with an open window, but since Ginger thought that it was good for her, she decided to try it. A cold blast of air confirmed her decision to not get out of bed. She had forgotten to lock the door. She could call out from the bed to have Ginger lock it, but she didn’t want to raise her voice to the point that Jared would hear her locking the door. She let it go.

  Moonlight was shining into the room. It was ethereal. The Eve of Saint Agnes swam in her mind. “The silver moonlight is so beautiful,” she thought. “It was a very nice evening.” She was glad she came. She tightened her covers around her.

  “Good night, Jared,” she said softly under her breath. For a moment, she thought she heard him reply. It was the distant wind. She fell asleep.

  Jared paced in his darkened room. He walked to the window and looked out across the bay. He couldn’t see the watcher, but somene was out there. He could sense it clearly, but this time it was different. This one wasn’t just nameless, it was soulless.

  Chapter Three – The Cold Years

  Valmiera, Latvia – 1981 To 1986

  Jared, or as he was known then, Jorens, had a brief, wonderful childhood growing up on his father’s farm in Kocenu County, near Valmiera in Latvia. It wasn’t actually his father’s farm then, even though his mother always spoke of it that way. It was turned into a collective farm in 1950, years before Jared was born. It had been his grandfather’s farm prior to the Second World War and the family owned it since his great-grandfather’s father bought it from a German land baron in 1836. Ownership or not, the Ziemelis family had lived on the farm for centuries. It was more than 600 hectares. It had been much larger at one time, but the land reform acts of the 1920s broke it up into several farms. Still, it was larger than most other farms in the region. It included a small forest, a fishing pond, and hundreds of arable acres. But now all that belonged to the collective. Jared’s father, Karlis, was born in 1951. His grandfather, also Karlis, was shipped off to the gulags in 1951 so Jared never got to know him.

  His father completed a five-year engineering degree at the Cesis Polytechnic University. He had a small bureaucratic position in the county government. They had a small apartment in Valmiera. They lived on the farm in one room only in the summer and only worked it on weekends. When small private gardens were permitted, he and his wife, Erika, spent more time working on the farm. Jared was always with them when they tended the large garden. The boy loved to plant radishes and beets.

  The boy was fully aware of his surroundings by the age of one. He spoke in complete sentences before the end of his first year of life. By two he learned to read and write. By three his mental age was equivalent to a boy of eleven or twelve, and perhaps yet older. No one could measure his intelligence accurately. By the time that Jared reached a chronological age of five, his mental development was too advanced to be believed by those tending him.

  The neighbors often talked about the remarkable boy at the Kalnvej Collective. They talked about the boy with great pride. Although Stalin had been dead for more almost three decades when Jared was born, people were still careful about what they said in public. Their talk wasn’t meant for outside ears. He was one of their own. Stories about the remarkable boy were overheard, however. A local technocrat from Valmiera reported it to another technocrat in Riga. It finally came to the attention of Professor Krebs, a high-ranking official at the Institute of Biotechnology in Vilnius, Lithuania SSR. If what was being said about this remarkable boy was true, they wanted to study him. He could be part of the new proletariat of the future. He could be Russia’s future. The Soviet experiment was running out of the time to prove that it could succeed.

  The Soviet Union had an insatiable interest in learning how human development could be enhanced. In part, this was a carry-over from the many German scientists forced to work for Stalin after the war. The Soviets were aggressively working at understanding DNA and the coding of genes decades before the Human Genome project was started in the West. The technology was yet to be developed to make such research productive, but the understanding of the importance of such research wasn’t lost on the Soviet biological science community.

  When he was almost six, Jared’ parents were told that he was to be brought to the Ministry of Science in Valmiera for testing for a special education program. If the boy did well, he was guaranteed a privileged life. His parents had great concerns about this, but they finally relented. They wanted to give their son every possible opportunity to achieve his ordained potential. When they learned that the boy had to spend the night in Valmiera and that they were not permitted to stay with him, they realized they had made a huge mistake. Of course, there is nothing that they could have done to prevent it. When they arrived at the ministry in Valmiera the next day, they were informed that Jared had been taken to Riga for further testing.

  The government officials in Valmiera claimed they didn’t know exactly where the boy was taken to. The collective wouldn’t allow the loan of an automobile and the bus to Riga didn’t leave until the next morning. His father traveled all night by bicycle. It took him eight hours to get to Riga and another two hours to find the Academy of Sciences to learn where his son was being tested. It was a cold night and it had been raining since he left Valmiera. He had a fever by the time he found someone with information about his son. He was told that the boy had been put on a train to Vilnius and that there was no point for Karlis to travel to Lithuania because by the time he got there the boy would already be en route to Leningrad.

  The father came down with pneumonia and was hospitalized in Valmiera for two days. Still ill, Karlis Ziemelis left the hospital despite orders from the doctors. He went to the Interior Ministry in Riga to get a travel permit to go to Leningrad. He stayed with relatives in Riga and went to the Ministry every day for a week. Finally, he was told that he would not be given the travel permit and that if he went to Leningrad without one, he would be arrested as a social parasite. He was reminded that he and his wife could do little for their son if they were imprisoned. They would allow them to write letters and to send small packages. Everything was to be sent to the Science Ministry in Riga. They never learned if he received any of their letters or gifts. They never gave up hope. Jared was Lutheran and although he hadn’t gone to church in years, he prayed each night that Jared would find his way home again some day. He would risk prison without hesitation, but where to start. Where was he to search? Erika would walk through fire for her child, but who will tell them where he is. They never saw their son again.

  Leningrad - 1986

  After traveling for days, the little boy was finally taken to a school for exceptionally precocious children in the outskirts of Leningrad. The school was a large stone building on Grazhdanskiy Prospect that once belonged to a wealthy Russian Jew who fell out of favor with Stalin in 1951. After the Jew’s deportation and execution his family was relocated to a farm in the Urals and the mansion
became a research facility for special projects that no formal university in the Soviet Union was willing or able to adopt. The official name was the Institute for Biotechnology and Nanotechnology, but it was the incipient research program for genetic and biotechnological engineering. The staff simply called it the Krebs Institute. As a mark of achievement, the Institute was awarded the Order of the Red Flag in 1967.

  As a reward, Professor Krebs was given a large apartment in Vilnius so that he could travel weekly between Vilnius and Leningrad to personally supervise the special children’s program. The most gifted children were plucked from their families throughout the Soviet Union and brought to the Institute. They were studied, cultivated and shaped. Part of the program was an extension of similar research conducted during the war by the Third Reich in Germany. Now in his sixties, Professor Krebs was said to have managed the German program until the end of the war. Krebs was a closet Anglophile and borrowed from British public school programs as well. In truth, some very remarkable children came out of his program. Many hold prominent positions in Russian government and industry today. The most remarkable of all the children was, of course, Jorens Ziemelis.

  The boy obviously spoke Latvian and Russian. That was compulsory, or at least the Russian was. In less than four months after being admitted to the Institute, he became fluent in English and German. He had also advanced far beyond his years in mathematics, music, and literature. By six, he was started on college level physics and higher mathematics. He was a brilliant student. He had the gift of absolute eidetic imagery, but by no means was he an idiot savant. It didn’t just remember. He understood. He could connect information. Most importantly, he could create. The faculty at the Institute was amazed by the speed of his progress. The boy remembered everything he read and every lesson he was taught. He forgot nothing.

  His physical training was much harsher than his academic regimen. It was clear to the staff that he could be a future Soviet Olympian. But for the time being, this was to be kept a secret for fear that the boy would be taken by a better funded program. Krebs frequently warned the staff what would happen if they ever spoke of the boy outside the Institute. Barely six, he could have set a world record for running the mile. Krebs knew that the world had never before seen a child like Jared. He was made to run the track several times a week, but it was always late in the evening when no one else could witness the tests. Krebs wouldn’t believe it until he had seen it for himself. The boy’s stride was so much shorter than an adult’s. How was it possible? Slowly, Krebs began to accept the unbelievable no matter what it was. He had special plans for the boy. He lost interest in all of the other children and their well-being deteriorated as time went on.